Westchester - Saturday, April 27, 2013 City: State: Section: A Page: 4 From: Gustafson, Colin Source: Westchester Edition:

1 Publication: The Journal News Yonkers rail plant celebrates 25 years Kawasaki has kept the tristate area rolling for a quarter-century YONKERS William Moore swells with pride when he sees people riding one the many commuter rail cars he has helped bring to life over the past 25 years. Things that most riders might take for granted a shiny steel car shell, a smooth-sliding train door, a brightly lit destination sign are all signs of a job well done for Moore. The Bronx native was fresh out of the Marine Corps when he first went to work as a technician for Kawasaki Rail Car in 1986, the year it opened its factory near the Yonkers waterfront. He has since risen from field technician to floor supervisor to testing manager to his current role as human resources director at the plant. "I love my job," said Moore, who commutes from Newburgh. "You feel like you're doing something for the public good like you're contributing to people's daily lives." A thriving staple of the region's shrinking manufacturing base, Kawasaki is celebrating 25 years in Yonkers as it commits to staying here and expanding its U.S. headquarters and manufacturing facility at 29 Wells Ave. An anniversary celebration will be held May 9 at the complex. Since opening there in late 1986 and beginning full-scale operations under the Kawasaki

banner soon after, the manufacturer has put some 2,500 cars into service, most deployed up and down the Northeast passenger-rail corridor, the nation's busiest. Over the years, Kawasaki's customers have included Metro-North Railroad, New York City Transit, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, and Long Island Rail Road, as well as transit systems from Boston to Washington to the Taiwanese capital of Taipei. Still, marketing sales manager John Calvello says, Kawasaki's prominent role in the region's transit infrastructure goes unnoticed by some. "A lot of people see 'Kawasaki' today and think motorcycles and Jet Skis," the Nanuet resident said. "They don't realize the trains they're riding are made right here, in their backyard." Calvello grew up in southwest Yonkers and says he remembers sweeping the floors of a then-closing Otis Elevator plant for a summer job as a teenager in the 1980s, several years before the Japanese manufacturer made the building its home. He and a few colleagues this month led The Journal News on a tour of the cavernous rail-car factory, one of Kawasaki's three buildings occupying a combined 300,000 square feet at the 24-acre i.Park Hudson industrial/office park. Throughout the plant, hardhat workers kept busy cutting and welding parts, servicing New Jersey's PATH trains, and assembling R188 New York City subway cars on elevated stands. During the visit, one worker meticulously examined the doorway of a PATH train while others ducked below a subway car's undercarriage to install the guts wiring, valves, brackets and other parts. The company's biggest current contract calls for 500 R188 cars that will run on the No. 7 line. The operation relies on Kawasaki's skilled laborers to keep up with sometimes heavy production demands. "It doesn't happen without the people on the floor," floor manager Steven Vangellow said. Kawasaki started making trains in Yonkers in 1986 after getting its first order for 95 rail cars from PATH under a contract that required the company to operate in the New York metro area. It chose the abandoned 19th-century Otis Elevator site, then owned by the Port Authority after United Technologies Corp. closed the operation in 1983. Kawasaki's arrival couldn't have come at a better time for Yonkers. In the mid-1980s, the state's fourth-largest city was going broke and reeling from two decades of decline in the heavy industries. "Our manufacturing base had basically evaporated" in the late 1980s, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano said. "The city had a tremendous amount of old vacant manufacturing

facilities all across the waterfront." Kawasaki's arrival provided "an immediate infusion of jobs, which was a real help to the city," Spano added. The Yonkers Kawasaki factory started with about 100 employees producing 20 rail cars a month on one fabrication line and one assembly line. But the workload soon grew. In the early 1990s, Kawasaki began making rail cars for Taipei while continuing to crank out New York City subway cars with graffiti-resistant shells. Later that decade, the operation expanded to two assembly lines and the workforce grew to 500 after Kawasaki won contracts to make hundreds more subway cars as well as bilevel trains for LIRR, Maryland and Virginia. Today, the Nebraska plant produces the steel car shells that are shipped to Yonkers to be fitted with parts ranging from electrical boxes that power the subway's HVAC systems to huge dumbbell-shaped PATH wheel assemblies. Each car undergoes a battery of tests and inspections on the factory floor and an outdoor rail track before being put into service. Spano said the plant's continuing success today has helped boost the local economy, providing a foundation for the downtown revival seen in the new shops and residential developments springing up near waterfront. More growth is in store: Kawasaki plans to use a $1.15 million grant awarded by the state's Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council last year to expand its onsite parts-fabrication facility, likely creating dozens more jobs. The company also appears poised to settle here for the long haul. It has begun finalizing a deal to buy the Wells Avenue facility for an estimated $25 million, with help from a $500,000 state grant that requires Kawasaki to keep 375 jobs in Yonkers through 2016. The deal would allow Kawasaki to remain within a stone's throw of its two main customers, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and PATH, said Kawasaki spokeswoman Laura Alemzadeh, who said the company is finalizing a transaction with the i.Park landlord. Calvello is excited to see the company putting down roots in his hometown. "We're looking forward to another 25 years." By the numbers 1986 Year factory opened

300,000 square feet Size of Kawasaki facility 2,500 Rail cars put into service 400 Employees, approximately