When Alstom bought Bombardier Transportation last year for around $5.5 billion, it already had a backlog of more than $70 billion in transportation projects in dozens of countries. And as countries like the United States begin to invest billions of dollars in low-carbon rail projects to address climate change, the company expects these opportunities to grow.
Mark Gruber, who managed Bombardier’s Strip District office, told his new CEO at Alstom that Pittsburgh was a great place to do business because of its abundance of tech talent. The Strip District office is full of engineers who design systems for trains to move quickly and safely. The new CEO asked Gruber what the company was doing to collaborate with the Pittsburgh universities that generate so much talent. And at the time, Gruber said, there weren't many opportunities because of COVID-19.
But this past summer, Gruber approached Pitt about a collaboration, and in November, the company and university signed a cooperation agreement. The partnership will involve three departments within Pitt’s Swanson School of Engineering, which jointly enroll about 500 students, although the initial collaboration will only involve a few students. “We'll start with a few that have the most applicability and will expand as we can,” Gruber said.
The plan is for Pitt students to develop research projects, take on internships at Alstom and eventually even land a job. Alstom staff already have helped provide feedback on Pitt engineering projects this year. For example, Pitt’s engineering school works with engineering automobile traffic, which is similar to the kind of work Alstom does for trains, Gruber said, and “some of that can apply.” Alstom has also agreed to become the lead sponsor for a Pitt engineering conference.
Alstom has around 650 employees among its three Pittsburgh-area sites and Philadelphia office, but the company is recruiting for another 70 positions locally. (The other two local sites are in West Mifflin.) Alstom says it has a recruiting event this Friday and has already hired five or six Pitt engineering graduates this year to full-time positions.
One of Pitt’s primary goals for the collaboration is to help prepare its students for what it will be like in a professional environment. “It's not about just get the job. It's what mindsets should our students have as they matriculate from college where they're hanging out at the bars on the weekends,” said Mary Besterfield-Sacre, the associate dean for academic affairs at Pitt’s Swanson engineering school.
“We're trying to launch a model where we really bring back alumni, bring industry into the fold to work with our students on what it's like to be a professional engineer working in the area,” she said.
Gruber said Alstom’s work requires a high level of professionalism. “When you're talking about safely moving people, you can't have anything go wrong,” Gruber said. “So there's layers and layers of protection. And every layer matters, and every person working on it has to bring a level of seriousness, a level of rigor.”
Some Pitt staff who attended a tour at Alstom Wednesday said students could be lured by the company’s sleek office. Walls of windows face the Allegheny River, giving a picturesque view of downtown buildings, rush hour traffic and rail bridges – a direct view of the kind of transportation they’re trying to facilitate in their work.
Workers don’t have assigned desks in the office, although the workers who arrive earliest in the morning can pick the prime spots. And some of the most picture-worthy co-working spaces hardly get used, Gruber said. Most workers plug their laptops into a table with between two and eight screens. (Gruber estimates there are around 2,000 screens in total.) Staff are expected to work in-person three days per week, although the cafeteria that was open before the pandemic still hasn’t reopened yet.
The office doesn’t have “superfluous amenities” like ping-pong tables or even much art on the walls. Gruber said he believes in work-life balance. “This is the place where you work, and you're proud of what you do And you're comfortable,” he said. “But you don't have to be playing games here.”
The Strip District office does a lot of its work on airport trains, including at some of the country’s biggest hubs such as Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix and the new airport in Los Angeles. But Gruber said that he expects new opportunities will be in light rail that can move people around cities without causing as much environmental impact as cars.
“There's a historic time right now in terms of investment,” he said, referencing $172 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act from last year. “Which means more competitive opportunities for Alstom. And Alstom needs to be the best to get in there and win those competitive opportunities. And that's where our relationship with the University of Pittsburgh can help. We need to be the best.”
