Liebherr USA Co. moved into its newly expanded campus in Newport News, Virginia, US that will house employees who work in administration, finance, human resources, sales, information technology, marketing, product support and distribution for the nine product units under the Liebherr USA Co. umbrella.

The move caps a , when members of the Liebherr family, company executives and Newport News city officials broke ground for the project.

鈥淏esides moving into a new facility, which is a highlight for our employees who contribute immensely to our success in the US, what stands out for me the most is the message that this US$60 million investment sends to our customers,鈥� said Dr. Torben Reher, managing director, Liebherr USA Co.

鈥淎part from investing in research and design for cutting edge technology, we have a long-term focus while looking at our business and the relationships with our customers. Thus, we want to grow together and our new site is the evidence,鈥� he said.

Liebherr opened for business in the US 50 years ago on 6 October 1970. The existing four-story administration building dates to the early 1970s and was fully occupied, the company reported. It will be retained to house employees of Liebherr Mining Equipment Newport News Co. The move to the new campus comes as the company marks 71 years in business overall.

Approximately 500 people work at Liebherr鈥檚 Newport News campus, many of whom are now working in the new office, repair shop and warehouse facilities.

According to Reher, the new campus will help Liebherr better serve customers across divisions by significantly increasing production operations for concrete pumps and repair capacity for mobile and crawler cranes, as well as for construction equipment. 鈥淲e will now be able to do boom alignments for mobile cranes up to 750 tons,鈥� he said. 鈥淔urthermore, the new shop will be a lot closer to our many customers in the Northeast region, which will lead to lower logistic costs.鈥�

The site also incorporates a new training center and workshop. 鈥淲e will be able to expand our offerings in relation to training our in-house dealers and dealer technicians, as well as provide this service professionally to our customers,鈥� said Peter Mayr, managing director of Liebherr USA Co. 鈥淚n our workshop, we will not only focus on pre-delivery inspections and standard repair work, but also recondition machines in bays allocated to complete this task.鈥�

Twelve repair stations will be available for the earthmoving division 鈥� an increase from the eight currently available.