PPG Industries

PPG Industries is a Fortune 500 company and global leader in paints, coatings, and specialty materials, with a legacy in automotive glass that stretches back over 140 years. Founded in 1883 in Pittsburgh as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, PPG was one of the original American glass manufacturers, and their innovations helped define the automotive glass industry through the 20th century.

PPG pioneered many of the safety glass technologies that became industry standards. Their work on laminated glass — the sandwich of glass and plastic interlayer that prevents windshields from shattering into dangerous shards on impact — helped establish the safety standards that protect millions of drivers today. Their research into tempered glass for side and rear windows advanced the science of thermal treatment that gives automotive glass its characteristic breakage pattern: small, relatively harmless cubes rather than jagged shards.

While PPG has divested some of its glass manufacturing operations over the years to focus on its enormously profitable coatings business, their legacy in automotive glass innovation remains enormous. And their coatings business remains deeply intertwined with the auto glass world — because glass is only as good as the coatings that protect it. PPG's automotive OEM coatings, which serve virtually every major automaker, include products that protect glass from scratching, reduce glare, repel water, and filter UV radiation.

Today, PPG generates over $17 billion in annual revenue and operates in more than 70 countries. Their transition from a glass company to a coatings company is itself a case study in strategic evolution — recognizing that the highest-value opportunity in the glass value chain was not in making the glass itself, but in the advanced materials that make glass perform better.