Volvo CE marks 50 years of manufacturing in Pennsylvania

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) is celebrating 50 years of building heavy construction equipment at its plant in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.

When construction equipment production began in 1974, the site was owned by Ingersoll-Rand and employed 50 people. Volvo CE acquired the site in 2007. Today, it serves as the North American headquarters of Volvo CE, a Swedish multinational with its North American office in Pennsylvania, and employes more than 650 people.

Staff gathered Thursday to celebrate the milestone in conjunction with a visit from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers’ AEM Manufacturing Express bus tour, with festivities including a cookout, yard games and storytelling.

“We have heavily invested in our facilities, our people and our services here in Shippensburg,” says Gustavo Casagrandi, head of operations at the site. “The work done at this site has a significant impact on our customers, our industry and the local community. It’s rewarding to gather today to reflect on all of that.”

The AEM Manufacturing Express is an interactive mobile tour visiting 80 member manufacturers across 20 states. It’s the largest public engagement initiative in the association’s history, designed to celebrate the U.S. equipment manufacturing industry and the 2.3 million workers who help “build, power and feed the world.”

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“We’re thrilled to be part of this 50^th anniversary celebration alongside community leaders and supporters,” AEM President Megan Tanel says. “This tour has been an amazing opportunity to tell the stories of the people in our industry.”

The AEM and Volvo teams invited local policymakers to the event to raise awareness of and support for bipartisan policies that support the equipment manufacturing industry and its employees.

For five decades, the facility that now serves as the North American headquarters for Volvo CE has been a hub for manufacturing roadbuilding and general-purpose construction equipment, with a focus on compactors.

Volvo has made significant investments in the site over the past 17 years, including a $30 million, 200,000-square-foot expansion of its operations footprint in 2010. In addition to the production of wheel loaders, soil compactors and asphalt compactors, operations at the location include a regional excavator completion center and a rebuild center for used equipment. The site is the North American headquarters for sales and marketing, a hub for purchasing and supply management and the design and engineering center for compaction equipment.