By Rodger Morrow, Editor & Publisher, Beaver County Business
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By now, most of us in the counties north and west of Pittsburgh have mastered the art of polite applause.
When the commonwealth announces “tens of billions” for data centers and energy projects—preferably beneath chandeliers in Pittsburgh—we clap, we nod, and then we look at one another and ask, “Did we miss the memo?”
Apparently, yes.
Which brings us to the debut of Power Northwest, a freshly minted 10-county coalition launching this week in Hermitage with the stated goal of making sure northwestern Pennsylvania is not once again the wallflower at the industrial prom.
The counties involved read like a roll call of sturdy, snow-tested resilience: Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Crawford, Erie, Forest, Lawrence, Mercer, Venango and Warren. If you stacked them together, organizers say, you’d have something like the third-largest “city” in Pennsylvania.
Which is to say, we’ve had the population and the pride all along—just not the unified megaphone.
Bob Wilson, a retired executive and longtime economic development hand, is serving as president of the new group. After last summer’s Pennsylvania Energy & Innovation Summit in Pittsburgh—where billions were discussed and northwestern Pennsylvania was not—Wilson and others concluded that perhaps waiting patiently for invitations was not a growth strategy.
“A few of the founders, we thought we needed a new paradigm,” Wilson said. Translation: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.
Thus was born Power Northwest, a 501(c)(4) that, like all such creatures, is not required to disclose its membership. Wilson declined to name founding organizations before the launch.
This has already added a faint whiff of intrigue to the proceedings—nothing scandalous, just enough mystery to make the rest of us lean forward and whisper, “Well, who’s in?”
The official launch is set for noon Tuesday in Hermitage, with business, education and political leaders on hand. U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick is delivering the keynote. Representatives from the offices of John Fetterman and Josh Shapiro are expected as well. In other words, bipartisan attendance—the political equivalent of bringing both uncles to Thanksgiving and hoping they don’t argue over the stuffing.
Wilson insists the group is not looking to replace existing economic development agencies. This is not a coup. It’s a choir.
“What we’re trying to do is speak with one united voice,” he said, “and work with the political leaders and work with the economic development agencies and help connect dots and use influence to secure major projects and help push them over the finish line.”
If you’ve ever tried to “connect dots” across 10 counties, you know it can resemble herding cats across I-79 during lake-effect snow. Yet the ambition is clear: align business and political leadership, advocate aggressively for data centers and energy investment, and ensure that when the next wave of AI-fueled infrastructure lands in Pennsylvania, it doesn’t stop at Cranberry Township.
The name “Power Northwest” is doing triple duty. It refers, of course, to literal power—energy, data centers, industrial capacity. It also gestures at political power, the collective influence of a region that sometimes feels like a geographic afterthought. And it hints at civic power: education, advocacy, and the ability to shape one’s own destiny rather than waiting for Harrisburg or Washington to send a postcard.
There is also a bit of competitive arithmetic involved. Wilson notes that if you combine these counties, the region would effectively rival the state’s largest cities in scale. That’s the sort of fact you drop casually into conversation when you want policymakers to stop patting you on the head and start returning your calls.
Underlying all of this is a simple anxiety: the AI and energy boom is not theoretical. It is happening. Data centers demand land, power, fiber, water and workforce. Energy projects follow the load. If northwestern Pennsylvania misses this “next revolution,” as Wilson puts it, it risks becoming the scenic route between Pittsburgh and Erie rather than the corridor itself.
Wilson even sketches the vision: an industrial technology corridor rising along the I-79 spine from Pittsburgh to Erie. If you squint, you can almost see it—server farms humming near interchanges, advanced manufacturers clustering near transmission lines, workforce pipelines stretching from community colleges to research labs.
Of course, visions are easy. Corridors are harder.
The question is whether Power Northwest can translate shared grievance into shared strategy. Can Beaver and Erie, Mercer and Butler, truly move in concert? Can private-sector leaders align with public agencies without stepping on toes? Can a united voice remain united when a major project chooses one county over another?
These are not small matters. But then, neither are tens of billions of dollars.
For decades, northwestern Pennsylvania has been described as “often overlooked.” It’s a polite phrase. It suggests a minor clerical error. In reality, it has felt at times like standing outside a banquet hall, listening to the clink of glasses within.
Power Northwest is, at its heart, a bid to walk through those doors—preferably before the carving station closes.
And if the region truly can speak with one voice, perhaps the next time billions are announced, we won’t be applauding from the back of the room.
We’ll be holding the microphone.
