PPG Industries, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 company and global supplier of paints, coatings, and specialty materials. With headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PPG operates in more than 70 countries around the globe. By revenue it is the largest coatings company in the world followed by AkzoNobel. It is headquartered in PPG Place, an office and retail complex in downtown Pittsburgh, and is known for its glass facade designed by Postmodern architect Philip Johnson. History 19th century Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company was founded in 1883 by Captain John Baptiste Ford and John Pitcairn, Jr., at Creighton, Pennsylvania. Based in Creighton, Pennsylvania (about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh along the Allegheny River), PPG soon became the United States' first commercially successful producer of high-quality, thick flat glass using the plate process. PPG was also the world's first plate glass plant to power its furnaces with locally produced natural gas, an innovation which rapidly stimulated widespread industrial use of the cleaner-burning fuel. PPG expanded quickly. By 1900, known as the "Glass Trust", it included 10 plants, had a 65 percent share of the U.S. plate glass market, and had become the nation's second largest producer of paint. Today, known as PPG Industries, the company is a multibillion-dollar, Fortune 500 corporation with 150 manufacturing locations around the world. It now produces coatings, glass, fiberglass, and other chemicals. Pitcairn served as a director of PPG from its start, its president from 1897 to 1905, and chairman of the board from 1894 until his death in 1916. 20th century Ditzler Color Company, established in 1902 in Detroit as an automotive color concern, was purchased by Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (now PPG) in 1928. On 19 December 1968 the company changed its name to PPG Industries, Inc., to show its diverse offerings. In the mid-1980s, Cipisa, a Spanish paint company was acquired and renamed PPG Ibérica and its CEO, Pere Nadal Carres, became CEO of PPG Ibérica. In 1990 PPG founded Transitions Optical as a joint venture with Essilor. In October 2000, PPG Industries announced it had agreed to buy Courtaulds Aerospace for $512.5 million. Based in Glendale, California, the aerospace business has annual sales of approximately $240 million, employs 1,200 people. It manufactures sealants in Glendale, California and Shildon, England; coatings and sealants in Mojave, California; glazing sealants at Gloucester City, New Jersey; and coatings at Gonfreville, France. The business also operates 14 application-support centers