Traco employee Cheryl Jones works on the final assembly of a TR 3000 window. Traco has handcrafted and replaced windows on both the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.

CRANBERRY TWP — For 65 years, Traco has been producing custom-designed windows and doors used in a variety of residential, industrial and historical restoration projects.

The company's five manufacturing facilities, totaling about 2 million square feet, are in Cranberry Township; Johnson City, Tenn.; Bainbridge, Ga.; Red Oak, Iowa; and Miami, Fla.

Traco's corporate headquarters and production facility are on Progress Avenue.

The 950,000-square-foot Cranberry building is the largest of the Traco facilities, manufacturing heavy commercial thermal aluminum windows and doors.

The company makes products for retrofit, new construction and historic projects utilizing state-of-the-art systems.

In 1943, E.R. Randall and his wife, Mae, founded Three Rivers Aluminum Company in Pittsburgh and quickly began forging one of the region's major suppliers of premium building materials.

In 1951, the company bought production facilities and began manufacturing the first of the well-known Three Rivers aluminum storm doors and windows.

In the 1960s, the company introduced the first Three Rivers Aluminum Co. replacement windows and watched sales continue to increase as it began servicing markets outside the Pittsburgh region.

The company continued to grow, and in 1971, it began construction of a new 12,000-square-foot production facility in Cranberry.

Two years later, an additional 24,000 square feet was needed to meet increased manufacturing demands.

In 1976, the company made a strong commitment to become a national company with construction of a 250,000-square-foot production facility and a 30,000-square-foot corporate office building to better service the U.S.

The trademark, Traco — Three Rivers Aluminum Company — was adopted to reflect the company's national commitment and direction.

Traco's capabilities include glass laminating, glass tempering, anodizing, paint finishing, aluminum extruding and glass insulating.

"We feel very good about being in Cranberry. The community has been very good to us," said Robert P. Randall, president and chief executive officer of Traco.

Traco now employs more than 2,000 at its five facilities.

"We have about 200 team members who have been with our company more than 20 years. That's really something special," Randall said.

With trends moving toward "green" environmentally-friendly and energy efficient ways of construction, Traco has developed a number of window, door and aluminum extrusion products for the growing construction market.The company has recently designed a new double window that offers high energy efficiency designed for condominium complexes, apartment buildings and schools.Energy savings with those windows is projected to average 15 percent annually in a typical, multifamily housing unit."This new product line will extend the product life cycle in a way that wood and PVC cannot compete," Randall said. "This line of products is about the future and innovations in enhanced energy efficiency and design, it is what's needed to compete in the marketplace."The production in its Cranberry building also is transforming its operations to be more environmental friendly.The company uses 100 percent recycled aluminum stocks for a majority of its aluminum products, and its electrostatic painting processes are well below federal Environmental Protection Agency standards, Randall said.The company's production, which started more than six decades ago, has been used in a number of historical and well-recognized buildings across the U.S.Those include handcrafting the windows for the crown of the Statue of Liberty and manufacturing more than 6,000 windows for the Empire State Building.The Statue of Liberty included 25 handcrafted windows for the crown varying in size, angle and curvature.Traco had custom-engineered and constructed aluminum templates made and handcrafted and polished each bronze window. It also hand-carried the windows to the top of the statue and installed them.For the Empire State Building in New York City, Traco manufactured 6,400 windows to serve as replacements.Weather deteriorated the building's original windows, causing them to lose energy through air infiltration. Plus, major problems arose with leaks that enabled frost to damage the building's interior, making maintenance costly.Another 6,000 Traco windows are in the famous Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.The Waldorf owners had been looking to provide guests with a new look, and the new windows also reduced high energy costs while maintaining aesthetics.In the Pittsburgh region, 1,345 Traco windows are in one of the two Mellon Bank buildings, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.Ninety windows and 882 windows were replaced in the Hartley Rose Building and Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, respectively. Hartley Rose is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.While the windows at Taylor Allderdice were designed to maintain the historical integrity of the building, the windows were designed with special grazings, panning and two-tone paint finish.Traco products also have been used for The Fulton Cotton Mills in Atlanta; the Civic Opera and the Drake Hotel in Chicago; the St. Louis City Hall; the National Theatre and Howard University in Washington, D.C.; Omni Hotel in San Francisco, and the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.

Traco employee Steve Shannon stacks glass cut by an XYZ Automated Glass Cutter. Traco has produced custom-designed windows and doors for 65 years. The company's corporate headquarters and one of its major production centers is on Progress Avenue in Cranberry Township.