American Building employees doing volunteer work

American Building, a Carson City-based Nucor company, sent a contingent of employee volunteers Saturday to Fuji Park and Fairgrounds to help with preparations there for the Nevada 150 Fair this summer.

It is part of a belated Earth Day work day to help out in the community, according to Denise Stathes, the firm’s environmental coordinator the past 14 months. She said the work program originally had been set for April 22 in the month of the official Earth Day environmental stewardship commemoration nationwide, but inclement weather postponed the work.

Some 14 American Building employees were expected, led by Damaris Pierrott, company safety coordinator. Stathes originally had been set to go along with 35 or so on April 22, but a conflict this weekend nixed her participation. The work day is doing done in conjunction with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department.

“They are trying to give the park a face lift,” said Stathes, adding the work will be painting bollards — five-foot high poles that will be done in yellow as part of various changes at Fuji. The drive to upgrade Fuji is due in part to the fair set for July 30-Aug. 3., and in part to make it more attractive to other event vendors afterward.

American Building, which provides buildings of all sizes for various purposes, has a large plant north of the Carson City Airport at 2401 Conestoga Drive. Buildings available are “complicated and sophisticated” and not just little boxes others might offer, said Stathes, and company website data showed they are indeed.

They can be for religious or educational purposes, as well as for commercial ventures of all sorts: auto dealerships; industry; offices; retail; self storage; warehousing; transportation and agricultural uses.

The company has been a fixture of the city’s manufacturing and industrial landscape since 1987 and in Nevada since 1967, according to Stathes. It was acquired by Nucor, a major steel maker and recycler with plants across the nation, in 2007.

Nucor, a publicly-traded company, says it started small but became the nation’s largest steel maker, is a major recycler and works to keep a topflight safety record. Pierrott, American Building’s Pierrott, the safety chief, said the 136 days without a safety incident at the Carson City plant was good but she wanted it to exceed 200 and keep going.

John Perl, a 28-year American Building veteran who heads up 25 welders at the plant that employs more than 100 in various capacities, said his tenure with the firm has been good but the acquisition by Nucor was “the best thing that happened.”

Garnel Mathis, structural supervisor of rigid frame at the plant, said American Building’s Carson City unit is set to move 118 tons of steel this year. Stathes, meanwhile, said the year’s business seems to be progressing well. She was asked if things were picking up.

“They are a bit,” she said. “It started out the year a little slow, but it’s definitely picking up,” She said Nucor keeps people working even when things are slow, a note of pride in her voice as she explained the policy.

Nucor, the parent company, trades under the symbol NUE and the stock closed Friday at $52.14, down three cents per share.