President Obama taps Alcoa Chairman and CEO to help advance US manufacturing

President Barack Obama has tapped Alcoa Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld to join the President's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee 2.0, part of a continuing effort to maintain US leadership in the emerging technologies that will create high-quality manufacturing jobs and enhance America's global competitiveness.

"Manufacturing is a core engine of economic growth, and innovation keeps that engine running," said Alcoa Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. "We look forward to using our innovation expertise to help ensure America remains the birthplace of technology breakthroughs that spur growth and create advanced manufacturing jobs."

Alcoa innovation has been behind major milestones in the automotive, aerospace, packaging, building and construction, commercial transportation, consumer electronics and industrial markets for the last 125 years. Today, Alcoa is working alongside automotive manufacturers to produce safe, more fuel efficient aluminum-intensive vehicles that consumers want. The company has played a critical role in the aerospace industry, having developed 90 percent of the structural alloys used in modern aircraft. Today, every western commercial aircraft uses Alcoa fasteners, and every western commercial and military aircraft engine uses Alcoa castings. In the defense market, Alcoa innovations across air, land and sea platforms have protected our troops and made our military vehicles stronger and lighter since World War I. Finally, in the oil and gas industry, our lightweight, non-corrosive products have enabled companies to extend their drilling reach, including in some of the most complex wells.

Most of Alcoa's innovations start at the Alcoa Technical Center, the world's largest light metals R&D center, located outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its experts collaborate closely with Alcoa's customers, businesses and the company's other R&D centers in Michigan, California and Australia. Together, these centers have filed more than 2,000 active global patents.

Bringing this expertise to the new Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee 2.0, Kleinfeld will help build on progress made by the inaugural Committee established in 2011. The initial Steering Committee produced a broad set of recommendations for reinvesting in advanced manufacturing in the United States, including the establishment of a nationwide network of innovation institutes. Alcoa has actively supported workshops and advised on R&D projects at the pilot institute, launched in Youngstown, Ohio, which is focused on developing and commercializing additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing.