Past President Vince Horrigan next introduced today’s speaker, Shawn M. Hricko, Plant Manager of the Cummins Jamestown Engine Plant in Busti.
In his current role at Cummins Jamestown Engine Plant, Shawn is accountable for the safety, quality and efficiency of the Heavy-Duty Engine Plant located on Baker Street. The engine plant is the manufacturing facility for the X15, ISX12 and X12 engines currently. The plant employs directly 1500 employees and builds between 80,000 and 125,000 engines a year in the one million square foot facility. The plant celebrates its 50th year of operation on July 20, 2024, and everyone is invited.
Shawn studied Mechanical Engineering at Penn State University where he earned his bachelors and master’s in mechanical engineering and a later Master’s in Engineering. While studying at Penn State, he worked at Cummins JEP as a co-op student. Upon graduation, his first position was at Ford in Lansdale, PA, as a robotics integration engineer. Shawn rejoined Cummins in 2003 after the consolidation and the relocation of the ISX15 engine. He has worked at Cummins here since in roles as the Assistant Chief Engineer responsible for emissions and tuning, Assistant Chief for the X12 engine platform launch and then as the Director of Quality as well as the Director of Assembly Manufacturing and Operations.
Shawn lives in Bemus Point with his wife Faith and two sons, Paxton and Brody. He is a member of the Bemus Point Central School District Board of Education, a member of the Manufacturers Association of the Southern Tier board as well as on the Industry Advisory Board at Penn State Behrend for the Industrial Engineering program. He has stated the interscholastic Mountain Bike league chapter for Chautauqua County students who compete in the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Cycling League (PICL). He also is the head coach for the Diamond Dawgs 11 and under travel baseball team that will compete in the WNY Premier series. In his free time, he enjoys his family, the hobby of building and maintaining cars as well as mountain biking.
Shawn delivered a detailed and interesting presentation, starting with the founding of Cummins in 1919. Currently, Cummins globally employs 73,600 people. In Chautauqua County, Cummins is the largest private employer and the largest United Way contributor. The plant produces 500 engines a day, with 40 trucks bringing in parts every day and about 40 trucks going out every day. Each engine is produced at a cost of $30,000 and can be made to specifications of each customer.
One of the newest engines is called Fuel Agnostic because it will eventually be able to use natural gas, diesel and hydrogen. A half billion dollars has been invested in the Jamestown Engine Plant for this work.
Cummins here reclaims water using reverse osmosis and has reused 6 million gallons of water. The plant in Jamestown also is working to produce enough solar power on its property and roof to power the plant.
Shawn gave an extensive speech which is difficult to summarize, but it was an entirely interesting talk that brought many questions and many happy bucks for Cummins’ presence here in Chautauqua County with tales of how Cummins had helped numerous local people and organizations.
