×

Cummins Engine Milestone Is Just Latest For Longtime Employee, Current Plant Manager

A wall of milestone engines will soon have a new addition.

The 2,500,000th engine rolled off the assembly line at Cummins Inc.’s Jamestown Engine Plant on April 26 and was on display Monday for Cummins dignitaries, employees and community members. Just as she has for the last few such milestones, Anna Dibble — who now serves as the Jamestown Engine Plant manager — snapped a photo to mark the occasion. The 2 millionth engine came off the assembly line at the Jamestown Engine Plant in 2018.

“When you put it in terms of the significance of that it’s just amazing the total quantity,” Dibble told The Post-Journal recently. As an employee I also have pictures of the 500,000th engine. We took team pictures and I’ve saved them all along the way. So it’s also really great to be able to look back on that history, the people that I’ve crossed paths with and the changes the plant has made over this amount of time. It’s really remarkable to me.”

The engine will be installed in a Kenworth Legacy W900 truck sold to Palmer Kenworth.

Cummins engines are 18.65 square feet each, which means 2.5 million engines would equal about 46.6 million square feet if they were laid side to side. Stacked end to end 2.5 million Cummins engines would stretch from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco.

“When you talk about production numbers it’s one thing,” Dibble said. “You think about the magnitude and some of the other ways to compare it, it really blew me away.”

Dibble has quite a history at the Jamestown Engine Plant. She grew up outside Russell, Pa., and started at the plant during a summer break from college. That turned into a second summer as an intern handling general accounting and payroll duties, a change in her college major and a career after graduation. Fast forward some two decades and Dibble has worked as a quality engineer, worked in machining operations as a product development engineer and a team manager. In the coming weeks Dibble will leave the plant manager role behind as she embarks on another role at Cummins.

“Long before computers and applying online, I happened to walk in looking for a summer job,” Dibble said. “I look back and I’m shocked by the story I could tell in this career … I didn’t expect to stay in the area for long only because I didn’t know what opportunities would be present. But the years went by and I continued to have opportunities and continue to work through different positions.”

Cummins employs 59,900 people worldwide, including roughly 1,280 at the Jamestown Engine Plant. The company has long-term supply agreements with PACCAR, Navistar and Daimler for heavy-duty and medium-duty engines and aftertreatment systems as well as an agreement with Stellantis to supply engines for its Ram trucks. Roughly half of all medium- and heavy-duty trucks on the road in the U.S. today use Cummins engines.

The company’s global footprint means there is room for growth for those looking enter the workforce. Dibble would know.

“When I started I didn’t know the opportunities that would be present,” she said. “I’ve been very blessed to be able to continue to grow and develop and have the opportunities I’ve had. Cummins is a great organization to be able to grow and they really help you wherever you’re at today. If you want to stay where you’re at that’s perfectly good, but at the same time if you want different opportunities, I ‘ve been able to have plenty of opportunities to stay local in this community. But there’s also a lot of opportunities within a global company to grow your skills, grow your opportunities and grow your network and do it in different places as well.”

Newsletter

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *
   

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today