TECH SUPPORT
Shapiro visits Gecko Robotics, praises ‘extraordinary work’
The idea for Gecko was simple, but it might not have come from anywhere but Western Pennsylvania. While touring a local power plant that had been shut down frequently for missed inspections, Jake Loosararian, then a student at Grove City College, thought robots could do a better job.
He spent the next few years developing a lizard-like bot capable of scaling walls, detecting cracks and corrosion, and, as it turned out, winning contracts from the Department of Defense, along with hundreds of millions in venture capital.
It’s a familiar story to Gecko’s 300 employees, most of which work in Pittsburgh, and one Gov. Josh Shapiro came to town Thursday to celebrate as he pushes lawmakers to approve a budget and kick-start his 10-year economic development plan. Robotics and tech are one of five investment pillars prioritized by the plan.
“There’s a whole lot more that we need to do if we’re truly going to be competitive,” the governor said, framed by two of Gecko’s signature wall climbing bots at the company’s North Shore headquarters.
“They’re doing extraordinary work,” Mr. Shapiro said of Mr. Loosararian and his team.
The governor has made several recent visits to Pittsburgh to celebrate and support the region’s tech sector. In November, he announced a $4 million investment in Astrobotic, weeks before the North Side space startup sent its first lander to the moon.
Despite the failure of that first mission, Mr. Shapiro predicted on Thursday that “Astrobotic will get to the moon.”
(For what it’s worth, he also predicted Duquesne’s upset victory over BYU. “I got the Dukes winning the first two games,” he said moments before the Thursday tip-off.)
Meanwhile, Gecko has been on a tear. The startup closed a $100 million round led by two billionaire-backed funds in December, a month after landing an additional defense contract to inspect Columbia class submarines. In 2022, it landed a three-year contract with Siemens Energy to inspect equipment across Europe.
Mr. Loosararian said his bots could help local infrastructure too. Pittsburgh’s bridges face a
slew of deficiencies, necessitating tens of millions in maintenance, a recent PostGazette investigation found.
Jennifer Apicella, director of the Pittsburgh Robotics Network, called Gecko “a classic Pittsburgh story” that is shoring up the local robotics ecosystem while delivering global impact.
“Pittsburgh is an established powerhouse for robotics and innovation, and we are now being offered the ability to scale this to a level that brings lasting stability and economic strength for decades to come,” she said.
Mr. Shapiro held up Gecko, whose robots are scaling bridges in Pittsburgh and infrastructure across the globe in the Middle East, as an example of what he’s trying to build. He said the $20 million his budget allocates for new innovation could help the next college student with a great idea see it through.
Lawmakers are still deliberating the governor’s budget and some Republicans have pushed back against the proposed spending increases. A vote is expected this summer.