Premiering in 2006, the PA Chamber's full-color statewide quarterly magazine, Catalyst, boasts a readership of more than 15,000 business professionals and elected officials across the Commonwealth. Through print and digital editions, readers can explore insightful articles by and about PA Chamber members, as well as legislative and regulatory updates.
Complete profile of a PA Chamber Investor Member company that covers their history, operations, plans for the future and economic impact to the Commonwealth.
Featuring PA Chamber member companies that are helping their workers and communities through philanthropic efforts.
Highlights the recognizable and not-so-well-known products made in the Commonwealth by PA Chamber members.
Showcases a small PA Chamber member company describing their goods and services, as well as the benefits and challenges they experience doing business in Pennsylvania.
Baker Industries believes in the power of work and acceptance to change lives. For over 40 years, individuals in the Philadelphia region who are challenged by disability, parole/probation, substance use disorder and homelessness have found the opportunity to get off the sidelines and back to work at Baker Industries.
By Curt Schroder
Walmart has a rich history of supporting veterans over the years, starting with their first veteran, founder Sam Walton. In the summer of 2020, the company announced it had achieved its “Veteran’s Welcome Home Commitment” — hiring 250,000 Veterans since 2013. To date, Walmart has hired more than 320,000 veterans and military spouses since the beginning of that commitment, including 9,709 in Pennsylvania. Additionally, more than 1,488 of those associates have been promoted to roles with higher pay and greater responsibility at Walmarts and Sam’s Clubs in Pennsylvania alone. According to the company, the focus on supporting and hiring Veterans will only continue.
Nicholas Bertram is president of The GIANT Company, an omni-channel grocer known to customers as GIANT, MARTIN’S, GIANT Heirloom Market, GIANT Direct and MARTIN’S Direct that has been proudly serving families across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia since 1923.
Are you paying your workforce competitively in 2021?
By Katherine L. Vaccaro, Esq. and Jessica D. Hunt, Esq.
By Senator Kim Ward
By Jennifer Berrier
Since COVID-19 gripped the world in early 2020, the race was on for an effective vaccine that could combat the virus. While on average it can take years — and sometimes even decades — to develop, test and approve vaccines for public use, the medical research and development community worked around the clock to create a viable vaccine for an illness that has devastated the world and, as of this writing, has sadly led to more than 2.35 million global deaths. Against all odds, the first vaccine against COVID-19 received emergency authorization in December 2020 — less than a year after the virus was first reported in the United States. The PA Chamber is proud to count among our membership companies that have been and continue to be at the forefront of this momentous achievement in our world’s history.
Opening up a jar of salsa, drinking a bottled Starbucks Frappuccino, enjoying a Rolling Rock at the end of the day … doing any of these things pretty much guarantees that you’ve used a glass container that’s been manufactured right here in Pennsylvania by the Owens-Illinois company — or O-I Glass, as it’s more commonly referred (including on the New York Stock Exchange).
Throughout an unprecedented year that has included a global pandemic and racial strife, minority communities have experienced a disproportionate share of challenges in terms of keeping their businesses open and people employed. Fortunately, groups like the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western PA are advancing their efforts to help Black and minority-owned businesses in the region navigate these challenges, in an effort to emerge with a stronger economy than ever. The PA Chamber sat down with AACCWP President Doris Carson Williams to ask how her organization has taken up this important leadership mantle during an extremely difficult 2020.
As a self-described “show-biz” mom, Deidre Robinson has transformed her industrious and nurturing spirit into a thriving business management company, affectionately named Baby Boy Management Group, LLC.
The transparent nature of glass can tend to quite literally make it “out-of-sight, out-of-mind,” but in reality it plays a vital role in our daily lives. Whether it’s protecting us while providing a clear view of the road in our cars, or providing a view to the outside world while keeping us comfortable in our homes and places of work, glass provides both functional and aesthetic value to the spaces we occupy. Even beyond our homes, vehicles and city skylines, glass is relied upon for food and beverage products, pharmaceuticals, military and aerospace applications, perfumes and cosmetics, and so much more.
By Rick Wade
Over the past decade, Range Resources has become a well-known employer and natural gas producer in Western Pennsylvania. While most people associate Range with the pioneering of the Marcellus Shale back in 2004, the prolific rock formation that has allowed Pennsylvania to become a leading natural gas producing state, the company has actually been drilling wells in the state for more than 25 years.
Pennsylvania’s business community has had to come together in times of upheaval before. Two World Wars, the Great Depression, and economic recessions have come and gone during our organization’s more than 100 year history. And now, yet again, we find ourselves in the midst of a crisis that we are determined to collectively overcome — the COVID-19 pandemic.
By George Stark
By Manu Asthana
Imagine an intricate machine that simultaneously keeps affordable electricity flowing to 65 million people, powering one-fifth of the U.S. economy, while planning how to operate through the most disruptive events and keep the lights on for the foreseeable future.
Calpine Corporation is America’s largest generator of electricity -- from natural gas and geothermal resources with robust commercial, industrial and residential retail electric operations in key competitive power markets, including Pennsylvania. Our clean, efficient, modern and flexible fleet uses advanced technologies to generate power in a low-carbon and environmentally responsible manner. We are uniquely positioned to benefit from the secular trends affecting our industry, including the abundant and affordable supply of clean natural gas, environmental regulation, aging power generation infrastructure and the increasing need for dispatchable power plants to successfully integrate intermittent renewables into the grid.
Graphcom has always had a “culture of good” initiative. The full-service Gettysburg-based marketing firm feels strongly that it is important to be good stewards and do whatever they can to help support the communities where their clients, friends, and partners live, work, and play, not just in times of need, but always. It’s part of the culture at Graphcom, and they live it every day.
One of the great lessons that has already been learned from the COVID-19 pandemic – which, as of this writing, continues on a global scale – is the importance of essential workers in getting our society through this difficult time. As Americans are being asked to stay at home and practice social distancing to combat the virus, there are some whose presence in the workplace continues to be vital. Food industry workers – from growers to the production line to transport, to those who stock the shelves and engage with customers at the point of sale – are at the front lines of this pandemic, and the employees of The GIANT Company are among them.
PPG recently donated 80,000 masks to hospitals in Pittsburgh, New York, Cleveland, Detroit and Huntsville, Ala., in support of Coronavirus relief efforts.
In speaking with business owners throughout the 46th Senatorial District, one of the most frequent concerns I hear is the threat of government burying industries in mountains of regulations and red tape. Many laws created in Harrisburg are borne out of good intentions, but ultimately result in expensive headaches for businesses across the Commonwealth.
By Secretary Teresa Miller
In this era of partisan bickering, it often seems as if there is little Republicans and Democrats can accomplish. But despite all the gridlock reported in media headlines, the Pennsylvania State Senate recently approved my bill, S.B. 637, by a unanimous vote. Their strong support for the legislation further underscores an emerging bipartisan consensus towards commonsense criminal justice reform that facilitates former inmates’ successful re-entry into our workforce and communities.
By Rep. Marcy Toepel
Custom Engineering Company is an Erie-based manufacturing facility providing medium-to-heavy metal fabrication and machining services, serving both domestic and foreign customers for more than 65 years. The company’s senior leadership team includes Board Chairman Thomas B. Hagen — who previously served as chairman of the PA Chamber’s Board of Directors — and President and CEO David M. Tullio, who is a current member of the PA Chamber’s Board. Both of these business leaders have generously committed a great deal of their time and resources to further the interests of social service and economic development organizations in the Erie region, as well as statewide.
Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that solves the toughest technology challenges for customers around the world.
Crayola believes in unleashing the creativity and self-expression that lives in the hearts of kids young and old around the world. The company’s mission to help parents and educators raise creatively-alive children is carried out in Pennsylvania by more than half of its 2,000 employees worldwide.
The first thing most people exclaim when they walk into the downtown Carlisle office of Green T Design is “I feel like I’m in a big city!” The ambiance is warm and inviting, with a bright green modern flair. The attention to detail in every office highlights the focus we have on Image and Branding while supporting a robust array of traditional and digital marketing services.
Many small businesses have the misconception that they aren’t likely to be the target of a cyber-attack. But the data shows otherwise. In our increasingly high-tech world, cyber-criminals don’t discriminate when it comes to hacking into systems to steal information. In fact, more than 43 percent of cyber-attacks target small businesses. It’s become an all too common problem facing small businesses throughout the country. One that Mechanicsburg-based Appalachia Technologies LLC, a full-service Information Technology support and security company, sees on a regular basis and works with businesses to combat.
Whether you’re a small or large company, domestic or international, the U.S. private sector has become the new geopolitical battlespace. This is the realm of asymmetric warfare wherein nation-states like China, Russia, Iran and others are targeting companies in nearly every U.S. sector for theft of intellectual property and trade secrets, cyber espionage, theft of personal data and other activities.
Nestled beside the Susquehanna River in Lancaster County sits the small town of Columbia, Pennsylvania. With a centralized location to Lancaster, York and Harrisburg, as well as close proximity to major Northeast cities, Columbia is a perfect location for businesses wanting easy access to markets up and down the East Coast.
Pittsburgh’s history is forged in steel. Its future is based in Tech and Medicine.
I was always a big fan of The Sopranos. A New Jersey mobster battling both his professional and personal ‘family’ life? Count me in. I watched every episode, even when I was too young to understand some of the more profane words and expressions (and there were plenty).
Vincent readily admits he was immature in his early 20s, a time when he was partying and convicted of driving under the influence, making false statements to police and retail theft.
This past June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invited the PA Chamber to take part in the formal rule signing for the Affordable Clean Energy rule, the replacement regulation for the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. The event took place at the EPA’s Headquarters in Washington D.C., and I was honored to represent the members of the PA Chamber at the event.
One of the breakout sessions during the PA Chamber’s first-ever Innovation Summit in May featured a discussion by Thaddeus Stevens College President Dr. William Griscom, and High Companies CEO Mike Shirk, about their respective organizations’ unique partnership. The school and the corporation are working together to ensure that students graduate with the skills necessary to enter into promising careers — many of which are at the High Companies — that not only pay well, but have a clear path to future success. This workforce-centric collaboration is helping to address Pennsylvania’s jobs skills gap while also ensuring that the talent and work ethic the Thaddeus Stevens College helps to instill is staying right here in the Commonwealth.
Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, a private, STEM-focused institution founded in 2001, is considered an infant in the world of academia. However, in just 20 years since its founding, the university is (quite literally) taking the world by Storm. As if offering unique degree options such as Information Technologies, Manufacturing, Healthcare Informatics, Biotechnology, Analytics and Media Systems isn’t enough, the university has risen to the top of the STEM platform again with the launch of the first varsity sports program at HU — eSports.
At Aqua Pennsylvania, we take seriously our responsibility of protecting and providing water services for the communities we serve. Water is Earth’s most precious resource and we know our customers rely on us to provide safe, reliable water each and every day. As such, Aqua is always looking for new and innovative ways to improve our water treatment process to best serve our customers while also protecting the environment.
Innovation in healthcare is happening, and it’s happening quickly. In addition to care-delivery advances, evolving payer models, and shifting funding arrangements, perhaps the single most important revolution impacting care and its associated economics relates to pharmaceuticals. Research and development appears to be focused — nearly exclusively — on low frequency, high cost therapies targeted to improve the quality of life for a small population segment with severe needs.
Innovation. The word itself has various connotations. Whether it’s pushing forward new technologies; adopting a science-driven approach to your operations (think robotics); or thinking outside the box to ensure your company’s relevancy and attract new consumer markets, innovation is critical to the heart and operation of many 21st century businesses.
Businesses that employ people with disabilities not only fill available labor needs, but often realize additional benefits and business opportunities. Employees with disabilities often assist companies in reaching NEW markets, suggesting product and process improvements, improving an organization's turnover rates and much more.
