Shaping the future

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."