Seventy three new jobs are headed for a factory floor in Cheektowaga, and 57 of them come with a union card.
What happened
Alex Simone at Buffalo Toronto Public Media reported on October 22 that Niagara Power Transformer has broken ground on an expansion of its Cheektowaga plant, a project the company calls the Niagara Power 50 Initiative. Figures released the next day by the governor's office put the investment at more than $71 million and the hiring at 73 new full time positions, 57 of them union jobs tied to IBEW Local 41.
The company has been building transformers in the same Erie County town for more than six decades. Town Supervisor Brian Nowak told BTPM that the business "has been in the town for over six decades, and what they're doing is doubling down."
The project adds 96,000 square feet to the existing campus and is built to raise output by 50 percent. In plain terms, half again as many finished transformers will leave the Cheektowaga yard each year once the new space is running.
What the plant makes is worth a sentence of its own. Niagara Power Transformer builds large liquid-filled power and specialty transformers: steel tanks holding copper windings and an iron core, filled with insulating oil that carries the heat away. These are the units that raise and lower voltage as electricity travels from a generator to a substation and on toward a customer. Very little else on the grid gets built until they show up.
Why it counts
The jobs are the story. Of the 73 new positions, 57 are IBEW Local 41 roles, which means a defined wage scale, benefits and an apprenticeship ladder rather than a job posting and a shrug. Add the 146 positions the expansion keeps in place and the Cheektowaga campus moves to roughly 220 people.
"This expansion is a big win for working families in Western New York." Greg Inglut, Business Manager, IBEW Local 41
Transformer manufacturing is one of the few places where a grid buildout turns directly into durable local payroll. A substation gets built once, by a crew that then moves on. A transformer plant hires welders, machinists, coil winders, painters, test technicians and schedulers, and it keeps hiring for as long as the order book holds. For an apprentice in Erie County, that is the difference between a job and a trade.
Company President Chris Kraft told BTPM that demand for power has never been greater and that manufacturing is moving back onshore. The governor's office framed the expansion as easing a critical supply chain bottleneck, which is the gap between how quickly utilities and developers want to build and how quickly the equipment can actually be produced.
Cheektowaga is not alone in that gap. In September, Hitachi Energy announced a $528 million transformer factory in Gallman, Mississippi, expected to bring more than 700 jobs, with construction starting late this year and production in 2029. The same company broke ground in June on a $457 million expansion in South Boston, Virginia that it says will create 825 jobs. Niagara Power Transformer is a smaller and older operation than either, which is rather the point: the buildout is wide enough to carry both the multinational and the sixty year old shop down the road.
The numbers
According to the governor's office:
- Total investment: more than $71 million
- New full time jobs: 73, including 57 IBEW Local 41 positions
- Jobs retained: 146, for a site total of nearly 220
- New space: 96,000 square feet
- Production capacity: up 50 percent
Public partners put money behind it. The New York Power Authority contributed $4.5 million through its Western New York Power Proceeds program. Empire State Development offered up to $3.4 million in Excelsior Jobs Program tax credits, which are performance based, meaning the company collects them only as the promised jobs actually appear. Up to $1.5 million in brownfield cleanup credits support work on a site with prior industrial use. The Erie County Industrial Development Agency approved nearly $2.2 million in sales and property tax abatements.
What comes next
No completion date was announced, and no construction schedule was released at the groundbreaking. The milestones to watch are plain enough: when the 96,000 square feet is enclosed, when the first new hires start, and whether the 57 union roles fill on the timeline the Excelsior credits assume. Performance based credits are self correcting in that respect. If the jobs do not arrive, neither do the credits.
The second thing to watch is what the plant does with the extra 50 percent of capacity. Capacity only counts if the order book is deep enough to use it, and Kraft's read on demand is, for now, the company's own. A year from now the headcount will say whether he called it right.
The Bottom Line
A sixty year old transformer maker in Cheektowaga just committed the largest investment in its history, and the first thing that investment bought was 73 jobs. For Western New York, the measure is simple: 57 union cards, 146 jobs held in place, and a plant that builds the one piece of equipment nearly every grid project in the country is waiting on.
Sources: Alex Simone, BTPM News, October 22, 2026 | Office of the Governor of New York, via Western New York Papers, October 23, 2026 | Hitachi Energy press release, September 15, 2026
