Gamesa names CEO for U.S. operations

Gamesa, the Spanish wind-energy company that last year opened U.S. headquarters in Center City, today named Julius Steiner, a Philadelphia lawyer, to head its U.S. manufacturing and wind-farm development business.

Steiner, a partner and labor-law specialist at the Philadelphia law firm Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel, will start July 1 as Gamesa's U.S. chief executive officer, the company said.

In a separate announcement, the company and the United Steelworkers said union members had ratified a three-year contract governing about 600 workers at Gamesa factories in Fairless Hills and in Ebensburg, Pa., near Altoona.

"This agreement is a great example of how we can have good jobs and a clean environment," the union's international president, Leo W. Gerard, said in a statement.

"Gamesa's wind turbines will not only provide clean, renewable energy, but will also move us further down the road to energy independence and toward securing our environment for our kids."

Gamesa spokesman Michael Peck said the pact reflected "a ground-breaking partnership in which we will be working closely together towards common goals."