Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Barry Copeland gave a very uplifting talk to the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce in mid-March asking people to take a look at all of the positive things taking place in Birmingham and the surrounding area.

Of course, we’re always happy with folks that take that approach to looking at things, so we decided that he would be a great person to formally begin our guest blogger series over on my Birmingham (go on, check out the post).

What we didn’t know was how much of an effect asking Barry to write would have (though we doubt we can take that much credit for it). We’re pretty happy with the result ourselves.