The Concordville Years
From around 1971 through 1979, the headquarters of the Gas Turbine Division (also known as the Gas Turbine Systems Division and the Combustion Turbine Systems Division), had been located rented space in the renovated Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Building in Eddystone, Pennyslvania, just south of the factory in Lester. The building was known as the A Building; the Gas Turbine Division headquarters occupied the upper half of the seven-story building, while rest of the building was occupied by Steam Turbine Engineering.
As noted earlier, the years spent at A-Building saw many ups and downs for Westinghouse gas turbines. Around 1977, just as the American market for new units was drying up—but the Saudi market had just peaked—it was decided that CTSD should have a new headquarters building of its own, and a new world-class gas turbine development lab.
Groundbreaking for new Combustion Turbine Systems Division (CTSD) headquarters took place in 1977 and the facility was fully occupied by the summer of 1979. Bob Kirby, then-Chairman and CEO, attended a dedication ceremony at the site in June of 1978.
For eight years, from 1979 to 1987, this site was where CTSD ran its business, serving both domestic and international markets, conducted significant research and development with both internal and external funding from EPRI, DOE, and NASA, developed improved engine and plant designs, managed numerous projects, and, perhaps most importantly for long-term survival, grew its service business as the most profitable part of its operation.
In fact, by the mid-1980s all of Westinghouse Power Generation took on a strategic refocusing of its business from the traditional emphasis on new unit applications to aggressive development of the service sector. Although "growing the fleet" was still an essential ingredient to the growth of the gas turbine service business, the lack of new-unit opportunities at the time dictated at least a temporary shift in emphasis. CTSD developed the Total Service program, promoting capabilities in outage management and availability improvement programs. "Total Service—More Than Just Parts" was the mantra. This writer recalls the National Sales Meeting in Orlando around 1983, and the theme of the meeting was "We're in the Service Now." The entire Steam Turbine Generator Marketing operation was reorganized around the operating plant market.
Concordville's Combustion Turbine Development Center—commonly referred to as "The Lab"—was completed in 1976, while CTSD was still located in at A Building in Eddystone, Pennyslvania. According to a Westinghouse brochure, The Lab was capable of full-scale testing of compressor, combustor, turbine, and auxiliary system components over the entire range of operating conditions (exhaust system designs were developed at reduced scale). The lab included a high-bay area that could accommodate a full-size gas turbine for testing and development purposes, as well as a large conference room and offices for the managers, engineers, and technicians who operated the facility. It was sized to enable full-scale combustion testing, which required a large, a jet-derived gas turbine driven air compressor. It also included a gas-fired heater providing hot non-vitiated air to simulate combustor inlet conditions.
Operations at Concordville grew and ebbed. At one point, around 1981 to 1982, CTSD employment reached a peak level of around 600 people. However, financial performance didn't support such growth, and there was a major down-sizing during the period of 1985 to 1987, prior to the move to Orlando. Only about 100 CTSD professionals and management remained to make the trip south.