When Bryan Schiller and Rob Wellman
began making architectural foam shapes for
the plastering industry in 2005, the brothers
used a manual hot-wire saw and a lot of
trial and error to cut decorative shapes
from car-sized blocks of foam.
Today Stone Canyon Products supplies
nearly all the architectural foam used in Reno
and Sparks. Perhaps the best example of the
company's work is the decorative Tuscan look
at Peppermill Hotel Casino's new $7 million
fa ade, and Stone Canyon also provided
architectural shapes for buildings such as
Summit Sierra, Legends at Sparks Marina, the
new Atlantis sky bridge, and Bodine's Casino
and Casino Fandango in Carson City.
Schiller, 38, and Wellman, 31, were longtime
employees of a Reno plastering contractor.
They branched out on their own because
the region lacked a local supplier for architectural
foam.
"Everyone was buying their stuff over the
mountain (in California),"Wellman says."It
was delaying projects waiting for it, so we
thought it was a good opportunity."
Stone Canyon started out in a 1,000-
square-foot fenced-in enclosure at a foam
manufacturer's premises on Kleppe Lane in
Sparks. The company currently occupies
6,000 cramped square feet at 1283 Spice
Island Drive, subleases storage space from
neighboring businesses and is considering
upgrading into larger facilities next summer.
"We are busting at the seams right now
but there is no need paying more money with
the current economy,"Wellman says.
Much of Stone Canyon's original focus
was providing architectural foam and fa ade
work, such as corbels, columns and shutters,
for residential builders.With the housing
slowdown the company has moved primarily
into commercial work. Stone Canyon recently
branched out into providing foam for roofing
insulation and materials packaging, and the
company plans to expand into stone-covered
foam shapes, such as fireplace mantels and
column caps. Stone Canyon procures its foam
from local sources as well as from a supplier
in Arizona.
Sales have increased from nearly
$200,000 in 2005 to more than $800,000 this
year.
The company predicts at least 20 percent
yearly growth with the addition of Nat
Sombatsiri for sales and design and Rudy
Calizo for sales and marketing. The company
employs 10 total. It also added a computerguided
hot-wire machine that cuts foam
shapes to exact specifications with as little
waste as possible.
Calizo was hired in part to help the small
company drum up business outside of northern
Nevada, and sales outside the region
account for about 10 percent of gross revenues.
Although Reno remains Stone Canyon's
biggest market, the company has made sales
in Boise and parts of California.
Originally Schiller and Wellman handled
all aspects of the business themselves, and
establishing a clientele was the biggest challenge.
"We were the only ones in the area doing
what we did," Schiller says."There were some
slow days, but those days are gone."
