Brier Hill firm announces expansion
The champagne was flowing as VOEST-Alpine Bergtechnik announced expansion of its Eli Shumar complex in Brier Hill on Wednesday. Pictured are (from left) James D. Kingsley, engineer/vice president at Consol; Eli Shumar; Ralf Oberdorfer, president VAMTC; and Patricia Mitchell, buyer. In three years, VOEST-Alpine Bergtechnik’s Brier Hill facility has evolved from an import site and warehouse to a manufacturer of mining machinery, a transition marked by its recent expansion.
On Wednesday, Patricia Mitchell, buyer for VOEST-Alpine Mining, Tunneling and Construction (VAMTC), took three swings before cracking a bottle of champagne against a steel pillar to mark the growth.
VATMC plans to add 20 new jobs over the next year-and-a-half, bringing its total workforce to 70. VAMTC builds construction and mining equipment. VAMTC is a subsidiary of global Sandvik, a Sweden-based high-technology engineering group, with advanced products and world-leading positions in selected niches. Sandvik operations, according to the company’s Web site, comprise the tooling, mining and construction, and the materials technology business areas. The Sandvik group has 37,000 employees in 130 countries, with annual sales of approximately $7 billion.
“To have a company of this stature in Fayette County, that shows what we are destined for here,’ Joe Hardy, local businessman and a Fayette County commissioner, said at the ribbon cutting for VAMTC’s new 15,000-square-foot facility in Redstone Township.
“We are very pleased to see this expansion,’ Ray Paris, Redstone Township supervisor, said. “These jobs are good jobs and will help our economy. Everyone is to be commended for this project.’
VOEST is a 153-year-old Austrian company that opened its site in Brier Hill at Eli Shumar’s Industrial Complex on Route 40 west in 2001.
Shumar said the company first moved into half of a new building he and Brier Hill Steel partners Jim, Dan and Chuck Snyder had constructed and took over the rest of it in the following two years.
Shumar built the 15,000-square-foot addition this year to accommodate VOEST’s growth.
Hardy said VATMC’s expansion shows that “We can do it here. We are looking for more entrepreneurs,’ Hardy said, adding he plans to start a venture capital initiative “in the next three or four months.
“Fayette County is destined to have a helluva future,’ Hardy said.
Fred Lebder, former county commissioner who has helped with the project, noted the area is getting away from the coal and steel industries as its main source of employment.
Companies like Shumar’s Welding, which has a defense contract, and VATMC, which now ships product to other regions, show the worldwide flavor that exists in Fayette County’s employer mix.
“We used to be an importing company,’ Ralf Oberdorfer, VAMTC president, said, adding that the parent firm has spent from $3 to $4 million on the local operation. The company has subsidiaries in Australia, Germany, South Africa and Poland and last week opened one in China.
VOEST, he said, employs about 900 people worldwide and last year had sales of more than 1.45 billion Swedish krona or about $200 million.
“We want to create more local jobs and get our products out to more and more areas,’ Oberdorfer said. About an hour before the ribbon cutting, Oberdorfer said VATMC received an order for a 150-ton machine from a limestone mining company in Chicago. Such production, he added, “will use a lot of local resources.’ The company anticipates 12 percent annual growth.
“This year, we started manufacturing here at Brier Hill. We have one product that is made entirely in the United States and several others that are 40 to 50 percent U.S. made.’
Oberdorfer said he “absolutely foresees’ adding 20 new jobs. “Our goal is to rival our South African site,’ which employs 200 people.
The company’s success, he added, “is due to the people in the blue shirts,’ which are VATMC employees.
Oberdorfer said VATMC focuses on production and its service to customers. “Nearly every major mining company in this region of Pennsylvania and West Virginia uses our machines. We are now an exporter (from Brier Hill) offering machines, parts and service to customers in Canada, Brazil and Russia as well as Pennsylvania and the U.S.
“We expect to receive a very big order from Russia next year,’ Oberdorfer said.
He explained current VATMC customers include five coal companies, two large construction firms and a series of smaller concerns. “We are presently operating 80 machines in the United States.’
While Brier Hill Steel owns the building VATMC occupies, Shumar Welding and Engineering does some work for the company in its machine shop, Shumar said.
VOEST also offers electric and electronic design including software development, machining of large steel structures, heat treatment, manufacturing of heavy duty gear boxes, assembly and testing of machines and repair and rebuild. VOEST is a leading supplier of roadheaders, which are used for tunneling applications (its Alpine Tunnel Miner series) and for development work in soft to medium hard rock (Alpine Miners series).
VOEST has a worldwide distribution and service network.
Meanwhile, VOEST’s parent company Sandvik was founded in 1862 in Sweden.
Sandvik offers multifaceted expertise in the field of materials technology. Sandvik said its sales have nearly doubled during the past five years.