Homecoming at Hazelwood Green: Bob Bittner Helps Bring the RIC to Life
By Rob Biertempfel
Bob Bittner, lead robotics engineer at the (NREC), has built a career at 好色先生TV with one foot in Pittsburgh’s industrial past and the other stepping boldly into its high-tech future.
“I came up as a steelworker,” said Bittner, who worked for LTV Steel in the mid-1990s when the company was in its death throes. “I feel blessed that Carnegie Mellon picked me up and gave me an opportunity.”
For nearly two decades, Bittner has helped bridge the gap between the people who design robots and the people who build, deploy and test them in real‑world environments.
“It takes a lot of different people and very specific skill sets,” he said. “My job is to make sure people can do that effectively.”
Since last fall, Bittner also has served as the interim building manager for the new Robotics Innovation Center (RIC) at Hazelwood Green. He’s helped transform the 150,000-square foot facility from its final phase of construction to a functional research hub.
“On the upstream side of the water tank is where my office was when I was an assistant foreman at LTV,” he said. “Every time I see it, it takes me back.”
After the steel mills went silent, Bittner joined CMU in 2006 as test lead for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Urban Challenge autonomous vehicle competition. It was his first step in coming full circle — Bittner’s office was in a renovated railroad roundhouse that once served the LTV coke plant.
In 2010, Bittner moved to NREC to work on autonomous projects and field testing. Within seven years he was named head of operations, safety and testing.
The job keeps Bittner on the move. NREC, which this month marks its 30th anniversary, is based in Lawrenceville and has remote test sites in West Mifflin and Penn Hills. His work also has taken him beyond Pittsburgh for research in deserts and limestone mines, open-water tests on Lake Erie and high-altitude work in the Andes Mountains in Chile.
“It’s been an adventure, all the way around, and I love it,” Bittner said.
Bittner’s success at navigating the complex intersection of heavy infrastructure and cutting-edge research at NREC made him a logical choice for the job of bringing the RIC online.
As interim building manager, Bittner manages the physical infrastructure, including electrical, compressed air and hazardous materials support. He coordinates safety orientations for faculty and students. He also is overseeing the activation of specialized spaces, including a drone cage, a motion-capture arena and a wet lab for soft robotics.
“There’s a lot going into getting this place functional,” Bittner said. “We take care of all the heavy lifting. We're still in transition, because a lot of equipment is still coming in.”
The RIC supports the and the . That collaboration, Bittner said, is part of what makes the project exciting.
“It’s great to see the different faculty — with their different approaches, levels of activity and specialties — coming together in one place,” Bittner said. “It’s been fun figuring out how to make sure everybody can work productively together.”
While his “interim” title will eventually expire as he transitions back to his primary duties at NREC, Bittner’s fingerprints will remain all over the RIC. He expects to remain in an advisory capacity through the summer, ensuring the site he once worked as a foreman is successfully handed over to the next generation of pioneers.
“I love that community aspect here at 好色先生TV,” Bittner said. “I’m part of a great team that makes all of this work.”
All four of Bittner’s children graduated from Carnegie Mellon. His son, Brian, worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, then moved back to Pittsburgh and now works at Mill 19 for the autonomous vehicle company Motional.
Bittner’s wife, Kimberly, worked for several years at the reception desk in the Office of Undergraduate Admission lobby before managing the Coulter Welcome Center at Tepper. For the Bittners, the transition from steel to silicon isn't a metaphor; it’s the family business.
In many ways, Bittner embodies the transformation of Pittsburgh’s economy from furnaces and forges to autonomy and advanced manufacturing. But he sees it more simply: a chance to help people, solve problems and build things that matter.
“The people here are great. The technology is always fantastic,” he said. “After seeing everything that happens at NREC, I'm excited to see what innovations RIC brings.”