Homer City Generation announced Friday morning that more than 1,800 direct-hire tradespeople and skilled contractors are currently working at the site of the largest natural gas-powered plant currently under construction in the United States.

Those workers are from nine local union organizations. Roughly 95% of them are local. More than 135 are apprentices and learning the trade at the elbow of journeymen. By New Year’s Day, the company expects 2,000.

Watch how fast that curve moves. When I first walked this property last spring, the count was 1,000, and the steel had not gone vertical. By May of this year, that number had hit nearly 1,300.

Over the life of the project, the company projects more than 10,000 construction jobs and about 1,000 permanent positions.

They are boilermakers, carpenters, electricians, ironworkers, laborers, millwrights, operators, pipefitters, and teamsters — all the same trades that their fathers worked when the coal plant ran three shifts here. And now all are able to stay close to their families, close to the woods they hunt and the streams they fish, and still have good-paying jobs.

Corey Hessen, the CEO who told a packed hall at the Pennsylvania Data Center & Energy Innovation Summit at the Rivers Casino in March, “I like to say that we identify value in unexpected places,” now frames it as a promise kept.

“When we announced the Homer City Energy Campus, we made a commitment that this would be a project that created real opportunities for local workers and their families,” Hessen said in a statement Friday.

“This Labor Day, with more than 1,800 workers active onsite representing nine local unions across numerous skilled trades, we are proud to be delivering on that commitment. Our workforce represents the very best of Pennsylvania labor.”

“The crews have hit major site-readiness milestones ahead of schedule with zero OSHA-recordable incidents to date,” he said, and it’s work that is “helping write the next chapter in Homer City’s proud energy history.”

Steffee, now president of the South-Central Building Trades, spent his career watching young men leave Indiana County because there was nothing here to hold them.

“For years, our local didn’t take in a single apprentice because the work simply wasn’t here. But now the Homer City Energy Campus is creating life-changing opportunities for our members and apprentices here in their own community, and we cannot hire fast enough,” Steffee said. “The future could not be brighter for our members and our apprentices — and on Labor Day, that’s something worth celebrating.”

Ben Steinmeyer, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers’ Local 5, measures the thing in generations rather than quarters.

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“I.B.E.W. Local 5 has worked for generations in the powerhouses of Indiana County,” Steinmeyer said in a statement. “Homer City Generation provides our members with decades worth of work, all while modernizing America’s grid infrastructure. Our electricians are an integral part of the community, and we are excited to share in the prosperity this project brings.”

Chad Morrison, business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 354, offers the most tangible receipt. The project let his local sell three aging training schools and consolidate them into one larger apprenticeship center.

“When we grow our union workforce, we’re not just creating good-paying careers; we’re strengthening families, communities, and the economy of the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Morrison said in a statement.

State Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, whose district holds the site and who called the original announcement “historic,” sees the hiring curve as proof.

“Fresh job opportunities for skilled trade workers and the ability for apprentices to have hands-on learning opportunities are helping to strengthen regional economic growth and competitiveness,” Pittman said.

State Rep. Jim Struzzi put it in the language of where he comes from.

“The partnership between the business community in Homer City Generation with local labor unions is a model for our Commonwealth and nation,” Struzzi said. “When we partner business with trade unions, the sky is the limit.”

That word model lands differently than it would have a year ago.

On Aug. 18, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), who in April 2025 said his administration was “pleased to see a project go forward” at Homer City, signed an executive order imposing what he called the “strictest guardrails in the nation” on data centers. His “demand” yanks every artificial intelligence data center out of the state’s permit fast track and requires local approval before the Department of Environmental Protection will even read an application.

The governor, who stood with Amazon executives in June 2025 to tout a $20 billion investment he called the largest in state history, now describes a “Gold Rush atmosphere,” with developers “bullying our neighbors” and “refusing to listen to the people.” Of more than 100 proposals statewide, his own administration counts a mere five with permits to build.

“The reality is, I want CEOs that give a damn about the community where they’re going to be,” Shapiro said this week.

Homer City is not among the projects caught in that net. Its air permit came through last November, clearing the way for full construction of up to 4.4 gigawatts across 3,200 acres, with power targeted for 2027, seven GE Vernova turbines, and Marcellus gas from EQT. First steel went vertical in April.

While Harrisburg argues over who deserves a permit, Indiana County settled the question with men in hard hats who showed up and poured concrete.

Last spring, Steffee described what thousands of workers arriving daily would mean here.

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“The influx of money will revitalize local gas stations, shops, churches, and barbershops. It brings a sense of hope,” he said.

There are about 1,800 people living in this town. And as of this week, there are more workers on the hill above it than there are residents below.