John Conturo has been in Pittsburgh’s East End his entire life, growing up in Highland Park and starting his machine shop, Conturo Prototyping, at a rented facility in Point Breeze.

And while he was hoping to stay in the area, the near future will see a move farther east, both to Wilkinsburg as well as Westmoreland County.

Conturo was looking to expand a few years ago, hoping to acquire the former Homewood Coliseum and convert it to a machine shop that also included an educational component.

He was disappointed when officials from the Pittsburgh Urban Redevelopment Authority announced in October 2022 they were rejecting proposals, including his, and going back to the drawing board to develop the Coliseum.

“We’d put a lot of eggs in the basket by that time, and things pointed to me leaving Pittsburgh because it’s just way cheaper and easier to do business someplace like Westmoreland County,” Conturo said.

Conturo started his business in 2016, expanding quickly from one employee — himself — and one machine in a 1,000-square-foot space to a staff of nearly 30 employees and 25,000 square feet. His company creates prototypes and small-batch machined components and has performed work for companies ranging from Facebook owner Meta to Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic, the company planning to send a lunar lander to the moon this year.

“I worked in a machine shop while I was studying engineering at Pitt, and I really fell in love with that trade,” said Conturo, 31. “And in the city, you’re not exposed to that type of thing much, because the machine shops that are left in the city are usually really small or really old.”

Josie Kuhn, marketing and grants manager for the Westmoreland-Fayette Workforce Investment Board, said the group is excited to see another manufacturing operation coming to the county.

“With its history of manufacturing, Westmoreland County holds a strong workforce, and the board welcomes them to the area,” Kuhn said. “Industrial machinery mechanics, CNC machine tool operators and several others can be found on the Pennsylvania Center for Workforce Information and Analysis ‘high priority occupation’ list.”

In addition to acquiring a small shop in Westmoreland County — Conturo would not say where specifically, since all of the paperwork is not complete — he also has plans to relocate part of his business to Wilkinsburg.

“We bought a building there, and so we’re going to move most of the operation to Westmoreland County and put the rest in the Wilkinsburg building, so we can still have a presence near the city,” Conturo said.

He said that while he is excited for the future, he wishes more of it was taking place in his hometown.

“This really breaks my heart,” he said. “But it’s kind of how the cookie crumbles. If we’re not going to get support to be in Pittsburgh, we’re going to go where there is support.”

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