General Electric Waukesha Gas Engines
1101 W. St. Paul Ave., Waukesha
Industry: Gas engines
Employees: 700
www.ge-distributedpower.com
When President Barack Obama visited General Electric Waukesha Gas Engines on Jan. 30, he was speaking in a facility that has been manufacturing engines for more than a century.
“We have engines still running that were built in 1920,” said Brian White, senior executive at GE Waukesha Gas Engines. “Waukesha has a reputation for ruggedness and reliability that can be used anywhere in the world.”
The facility opened as Waukesha Motor Company in 1906. In 2010, GE acquired the facility when it was under the ownership of Dresser Inc., making it a part of GE’s Gas Engines business.
Since then, the manufacturing workforce has been expanded from 275 to 400 unionized workers and more than $30 million has been invested in equipment in the 1 million-square-foot facility at 1101 W. St. Paul Ave. in Waukesha.
Gas-fueled engines with a “wide range of fuel qualities” ranging from propane to natural gas are built there, White said.
“There are very few engines that can run on that range,” he said.
In addition to fuel flexibility, White said, the engines also have unique altitude flexibility that allows them to function in locations such as the Andes mountains, a wide range of horsepower (from 250 to 5,000), and are some of the cleanest engines on the market.
About 70 percent of the engines built have gas compression applications, 20 percent are used to generate electricity, and 10 percent have a “pure mechanical drive,” White said.
The manufacturing space in the facility is 650,000 square feet and is split into two parts – a machine shop and assembly.
White said there is a big future for the facility and for GE in natural gas engines.
“People talk about natural gas being a bridge fuel for renewable (energy),” he said. “That’s now gone, it’s actually the fuel of the future.”
White said more and more vehicles could be powered by natural gas as the infrastructure for fueling natural gas-powered vehicles continues to expand, which could create more opportunities for jobs.
“There’s a tremendous amount of (natural) gas out there,” White said. “We just have to build the infrastructure.”
GE Waukesha Gas Engines now works with the Waukesha County schools, building engines for new propane-powered school buses.
White said natural gas is a cleaner fuel alternative in the market, as hybrid vehicles still used coal-fired power when accounting for where the electricity comes from.
Cleaner energy is part of the reason Obama paid a visit to the plant in the days following the State of the Union address, but another is its robust worker training program.
The jobs training programs in place at General Electric’s Waukesha Gas Engine plant “can be a model for the country,” said Obama, praising both the plant’s youth and adult apprenticeship programs.
White said these programs are being further developed as its natural gas business expands and the need for skilled trades in manufacturing remains high.
“Whatever I can do to get more skilled trades, that’s what I’m going to do to keep business going,” White said.
