Executives to visit Slovenia on manufacturing mission
Three Millcraft Investments executives, including Chairman Jack Piatt, will travel to Slovenia next week to try to bring an LED lighting plant to the Pittsburgh area.
Millcraft Vice President Lucas Piatt said Tuesday he, his father and Millcraft Chief Financial Officer Brian Walker will visit with Grah Lighting principal Robert Grah and tour one of the company’s plants.
Piatt said Washington-based Millcraft, which is among the leading developers of downtown Pittsburgh’s residential, retail and hospitality projects, decided to make the visit when it learned of Mayor Bill Peduto’s interest in attracting Grah to Pittsburgh to manufacture the company’s nonautomotive LED lights for the Americas. Pittsburgh is competing with Cleveland and Denver for the operation.
According to Grah Lighting’s website, it also manufactures LED streetlights, as well as lights for a variety of commercial applications, including warehouses, production areas and shopping centers.
“We want to try to bring more manufacturing to Pittsburgh on the back of the high-tech” industries that exist in the region, Piatt said.
Piatt stressed the plans are in a very preliminary stage.
Grah already has an automotive LED manufacturing facility in Michigan, and supplies lighting to Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and General Motors.
According to Piatt, Millcraft decided to assist with encouraging Grah to locate here because of its earlier experience with European manufacturers.
He noted that his father worked in the past with European manufacturers in the steel industry and in mining machinery.
Piatt said it’s unclear whether Grah would bring a full-scale manufacturing operation or an assembly plant to the United States.
“We want to partner with their company” to bring an operation to the area, he said. “Grah has shown extremely high interest in coming to the states.”