Newest Fortune 500 firm on the (North Shore) block
Wabtec settles in at global HQ
It was a kind of homecoming. A bright new global headquarters a mile up the Ohio River from where George Westinghouse brought his air brake invention to life 150 years ago.
“What matters most now is what we do next,” declared Wabtec Corp. CEO Rafael Santana, who was picked to run the newly minted Fortune 500 company after it acquired GE Transportation earlier this year.
Speaking at a celebration of Wabtec’s move from the industrial grit of Wilmerding to the shiny sterility of 30 Isabella St. on the North Shore, Mr. Santana added: “I have no doubt it will be great.”
It has been a few weeks since about 170 employees of the rail products firm settled into their new digs. The plan is to have about 250 people there over the next few years.
The change of scenery is both functional — Wilmerding was too small to hold the GE Transportation folks coming on board — and symbolic, meant to elicit a modern, tech-company feel as Wabtec expands its efforts in automation and digitization.
It has all the trappings: the glass-encased gym, a sleek white ping-pong table, the occasional giant wall mural of trains.
After an eventful year, during which Wabtec closed on the $11 billion acquisition and then immediately found itself dealing with striking workers at GE’s Erie plant, the company is now focused on expanding its services in the transit and freight sectors. It has 27,000 employees in more than 80 countries.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto inducted Wabtec into the club of Pittsburghbased businesses leading what he described as “the Fourth Industrial Revolution — the revolution of machines that make machines, of the automation of everything.”
“Seems George has come home,” Mr. Peduto said.