400 PPG workers from throughout the country have packed up their bags to begin work at the company's new regional headquarters in Cranberry Township. The architectural coatings office celebrated its grand opening Thursday.
Scott Sinetar, Vice President of Architectural Coatings for the U.S. and Canada, said the creation of the new headquarters is the result of PPG Industry’s 2013 acquisition of AkzoNobel’s North American decorative paints business.
This was not only the second largest acquisition in PPG’s history, but it also made it the second largest paint producer with brands such as Glidden, Liquid Nails and Dulux.
AkzoNobel was based outside of Cleveland in Strongsville, Ohio, but Sinetar said PPG wanted to combine the employees from the acquisition with those at PPG.
“Ideally, if you think of Cranberry, there is a nice connection between where they were in Cleveland and downtown and just trying to find an area that just made the most sense to the employees and the team,” Sinetar said.
Sinetar said the architectural coating division had been scattered among McCandless, Pennsylvania; Louisville, Kentucky and Dover, Delaware.
“The decision was made to really bring the whole team together to really take full advantage of a team and the collaboration,” Sinetar said. “And we started to move people in early in the year, but the construction is now done in the building.”
The new headquarters is located on the Butler County side of Cranberry Township, about 20 miles north of PPG’s global headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh.
It will be the new home for employees who work with the sales leadership, marketing, information technology, human resources and supply chain teams.
“Really every function is here, and of course, everyone is interrelated from the standpoint of being productive and efficient,” Sinetar said. “Our entire customer service team is here, our technical team is here, so it really is an opportunity to get the most out of everybody working in the same place.”
The headquarters is opening with 400 employees, but Sinetar said they hope to bump that up to 500.
“We are still recruiting,” he said. “We have brought in probably 150 new hires so far, and I would tell you that by the time we’re done there’ll be about another hundred that’ll be coming into this office here.”
