At this time last year, economists appeared to be on the same page when it came to the forecast for 2009. More of the same, they warned: a slow market recovery, high unemployment, low interest rates, and persistent weakness in the housing market and within those sectors most impacted by the recession (manufacturing, financials, and discretionary spending). For the most part, the doom and gloom scenario envisioned by many for this past year proved true. Almost exactly one year ago, on December 1, 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially announced what most Americans (and indeed, most people worldwide) already knew: that the economy was in a recession that had started in December of 2007. 

Like most of us, Constantin “Dino” Pertzoff never thought he’d ever appear on television at the national or international level, but he did. Sure, his high-rise World Wide Window Cleaning Company in Honolulu, Hawaii, has been featured many times locally in newspapers and on TV, but on Oct. 13 and again on Nov. 7, his daring work reached greater heights in being televised throughout the U.S. and worldwide. This, thanks to the Discovery Channel’s popular series Dirty Jobs which profiles unsung Americans who make their livings doing what most people know little or nothing about, let alone the danger some face, including window cleaners such as Pertzoff and his crews....

The Window Cleaning Hall of Fame is unlike any other hall of fame, such as the shrines for sports stars. There is no induction ceremony or a building with plaques and gold-plated tools of the trade, but nonetheless it does exist. Found in the virtual world of the Internet, it is a tribute to the movers and shakers who contributed to the history of modern window cleaning. No need to travel cross country to get there. Just click on the net and go to  www.windowcleaninghalloffame.com and you can enter the Hall, see photos of the inductees, read about their contributions to the industry and learn more about it....