A green thumbs-up for tech remarketer Vibrant Technologies

When I pleaded my case to the ZDNet editors to let me contribute to this blog, I promised to regularly recognize neat-o regional efforts that fall into the green tech movement.

After all, for every mammoth corporation looking to eke out some corporate responsibility greenie points in its annual report, there are dozens nay hundreds of smaller companies fighting the good fight.

The first company I’d like to point out is Vibrant Technologies, which remarkets computers and servers for clients in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Although you won’t find a whole lot of green hype on their Web site, actions speak louder than marketing copy. The founder and CEO, Jennifer VanderHorst-Larson, says her company’s main refurbishing task center on extending the life of servers -- either by making use up excess inventory or by taking systems out of service and finding new uses for them.

For the record, she extends eco-thinking to her company’s purchasing habits, using only specific paints, non-toxic cleaning fluids and other products that started life in some other form.''As a whole, people are still pretty uneducated on the magnitude of what these products do,'' she says.

Part of Vanderhorst-Larson’s crusade is tied to her son’s autism disorder diagnosis, which she believes is related to environmental factors. Part of the money that Vibrant earns goes to The Holland Center, which she runs and which is dedicated to forms of therapy for children with autism spectrum disorder.

A double green thumbs-up to you, Jennifer.