Glass plant likely to close

Mr. Stas said.

About 130 people work at Pittsburgh Glass Works’ North Shore headquarters and about 100 engineers and scientists work at a researchcenter in Harmar.

The East Deer plant, about 20 miles northeast of Downtown Pittsburgh, is the company’s oldest. It opened in 1883 after John Ford and John Pitcairn incorporated Pittsburgh Plate GlassCo.

Itwas modernized for the first time in the 1920s and the company then developed processes to mass-produce sheet glass and safety glassfor car windshields.

In the 1940s, it produced glass for military use, reaching peak employment in the 1950s with between 4,000and 6,000 workers.

By the late 1960s, plate glass production had been phased out and the plant was used to fabricate windshield and aircraft glass.

By the 1990s, employment there had dropped to fewerthan 300.

In 2008, PPG sold 60 percent of its auto glass business to private investment firm Kohlberg & Co. as part of its strategy to shed glass and chemicals, and to focus on becoming a paints and coatingsindustry leader.

The auto glass business, renamed Pittsburgh Glass Works was sold again in 2016 to LKQ, a Chicagobased auto parts distributor that also acquired PPG’s remaining40 percent stake.

Earlier this year, PGW was sold to Mexican glass giant Vitro S.A.B. de C.V., which also owns PPG’s former flat glass operations. Vitro paid $310 million for thebusiness.

Mr. Stas, who launched his career with PPG, spent six years overseeing manufacturing operations at the East Deer plant before PPG divested it.

“That’s what makes this difficult as well,” he said.