From concept to delivery

Sierra Metals offers the advantages of a diverse, full-service staff

As an emerging company, Sierra Metals Inc. is dedicated to providing a complete package of services to all designers through collaboration with their in house architect, LEED accredited professional and fabrication designers. They are capable of assisting and guiding throughout the design process utilizing the diverse talents of their staff to ultimately fabricate world class products. Sierra Metals can work with all kinds of metals, from aluminum to titanium and specializing in aluminum composite panels (ACM).
Capabilities include a full array of custom exterior wall systems to artistic sculptures utilizing strong collaboration and fabrication talents. More current work has included ACM-clad structures with custom aluminum sunshades, curved column covers and custom curtain wall all with asymmetrical geometry. Processes include everything from aluminum design and fabrication to alignment with quality finishers and installers. All work is custom, so components are specifically and precisely made for each unique project.
Beyond design, fabrication and assembly are handled by highly trained and experienced staff of fabricators, CNC operators and certified welders, to achieve strict tolerances. They are led by Spencer Grucza, programming manager, who brings 35 years of fabrication experience to the company. His department consists of CNC programmers and/or design fabricators. He notes that “we have the ability to produce ACM panels in two weeks after receiving approved shop drawings, while the industry norm is six to eight weeks.”
Certified IT professionals continually seek new processes and technologies to keep Sierra Metals ahead of the competition to allow for concepts to become reality. One of these is Mike Calhoun, MCP, who manages all aspects of day-to-day IT tasks. Sierra Metals uses its technology to make the most efficient use of sheet goods, thus being highly competitive with value and in efforts to minimize waste. In addition, verification of quality through third party testing facilities assures accuracy and top quality.
Green credentials
As an active member of the USGBC and local Entrepreneurs 4 Sustainability community, Sierra Metals takes pride in striving for truly integrated design. Sierra Metals’ care with its resources is just another facet of its dedication to the principals of sustainable building. Sierra Metals searches for materials with high recycled content and recycles all post-fabrication aluminum, office paper and plastic. “The use of our products is a value proposition for LEED criteria,” says owner Joe Lopez. “We can add up to 12 LEED points with proper use of metal, in categories such as recycled content, regional materials and innovation”. Also helping to save on resources and costs, is Sierra Metal’s attention to every detail. To meet this kind of need, Sierra Metals offers the services of quality control and logistics specialists to assure high accuracy and facilitate on-time delivery.
Sierra Metals competitively bids on work through the Builders Exchanges in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Altoona, PA, for public and privately invited projects, including schools, hospitals, hospitality, transportation facilities and commercial facilities. Sierra Metal’s bonding capacity is above national averages in its field, so it is well positioned to bond projects locally, regionally and nationally.
Service above and beyond
In addition to its fabrication services, Sierra Metals also provide, design, and budget assistance, enabling customers to realize the highest efficiencies of planning and costing. “It is design on the fly that we are trying to avoid, problem solving and proper design and coordination is our goal to do things better, faster, more creatively but ultimately to the best representation of the design concept,” Lopez says. “Sometimes our clients think of design elements that are seemingly unachievable. But with collaboration and education as a team, any concept can become reality”. We allow our client’s imaginations to soar and collaboratively create solutions to make them reality. We put to use our experience in fabrication design and our knowledge in the management of people and time. This is how we are able to deliver fantastic products on time, budget, and fulfill their aspirations.” ■

On the grow

Sierra Metals’ growth during turbulent times is a matter of teamwork, expertise

Sierra Metals Inc. is growing quickly and is helping its clients to grow as well. Its management style has put Sierra Metals on the map. Within a year of opening the business to the Ohio market, Sierra Metals now occupies space in 2 buildings at its fabrication facility in Mentor, Ohio, offices in Cleveland, Ohio and has expanded to a new facility in the Las Vegas market where it is well suited to service the Nevada, California and surrounding Western states.
According to president and CEO Joe Lopez, Sierra Metals Inc. has an internal structure that allows it to meet every customer’s need for original design and for a high level of service and precision. A team of strategically selected players have been put together at Sierra Metals to create a pool of talent that is capable of transforming conceptual designs into reality, quickly, says architect Evan Zane. These efficiencies have allowed it to garner kudos from industries such as the hospitality industry, he says, even in tourist-centered Las Vegas, where on-time delivery is essential. Zane is the lead architect, with five years’ experience in the field, and he shares his talents in project management and coordination.
Sierra Metals’ estimator Kirsten Malcolm Gatewood, Assoc. AIA, notes that “even in this economy, we are growing.” She outlines one major reason for this: the multi-faceted talents of the Sierra Metals workforce. Lopez brings his experience as a seasoned general contractor to the forefront, understanding both the capabilities of the supplier and the time and organizational needs of the site. He bases this on his success as a principal contractor for over 21 years. As part of the Business Development and Estimating Team, Gatewood has 20 years’ experience in architecture and 10 years’ experience owning a fabrication shop drawing and design services company, with many national construction projects under her belt.
Gatewood adds, “Joe has the experience as a successful general contractor, so he understands the work and expectations from all stakeholders, and we have experience working with architects, general contractors, project managers and owners. Together, everyone at Sierra Metals brings valuable talent to the table, and so now, as a subcontractor, we can work as part of a team understanding all points of view on a project. Based on our experience, we can identify problems that arise and address them. It leads to better cooperation and success.”
Amrata Kirpalani, LEED AP, also notes the variety of skills available at Sierra Metals, and high-level skills at that. “It is a varied talent pool,” she says, “and we all continue to learn from each other and absorb new ideas.”
This diversity also means the firm has an extensive network of contacts that it can tap into.
Indeed, the Las Vegas office has recently moved into a larger facility with a new office/fabricating/warehouse location in Henderson, NV, with over 20,000 sf. of space to serve their clients’ wide range of needs.
A newly redesigned and relaunched website is located at www.sierra-metals.com, showcasing the large body of diverse, well executed and interesting work it has accomplished in a very short time.
Another reason for the company’s fast-growing success is the place it has made for itself in a knowledge based economy. Innovation takes a key role at Sierra Metals, says Kirpalani, with staff keeping up with advances such as BIM (building information modeling) and always ahead of the learning curve when it comes to new ideas about manufacturing and fabrication.
Learning curve
Also helpful on this end are Joe Lopez’s business leadership and his many community activities and the staff’s memberships in such organizations as AIA, NCARB, the Green Building Council, the Construction Specifications Institute and Entrepreneurs 4 Sustainability. “After all, construction is relationship-based,” says Kirpalani.
At Sierra Metals Inc., training is central. Continuing education is provided for staff at all levels. The company’s processes are aligned with the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) certification, and exceed ISO 9001:2008 standards.
Plus, it takes its mission to train an emerging workforce for the industry seriously and its status as a minority-owned enterprise seriously, so it backs diversity training programs as a way to grow the industry, as well as future generations. Sierra Metals is also committed to the precepts of Six Sigma and Lean management (practices dedicated to yield more value with less waste), and is continuously striving for improved quality, a team approach and ever-expanding efficiency.
Michael Slocombe, Quality Assurance/Quality Control manager, uses Quality Management tools that target continuous improvement to maximize the business performance to provide a process-based quality system to ensure customer satisfaction.
A design resource
But in addition to teaching its own personnel and the future generation, Sierra Metals Inc. is happy to work with clients in a collegial fashion to expand knowledge all around.
Its next step, planned to roll out in 2010, is for the addition of a design studio to be used as a resource for A/Es. They can work together with Zane and Kirpalani, the fabrication design team and the project designers in a studio that offers the ability to have open discussions and conduct design charrettes at early stages and enable the project’s potential to really create dramatic design results. These capabilities will be unveiled in Lunch and Learns, using technology as part of the educational experience for customers.
Collaboration is also promised by the high-tech approach Sierra Metals takes. Lopez explains how his operation supports teamwork with clients. “We allow for communications with overseas firms, too, using our videoconferencing capabilities,” he says. “We recently collaborated with a German firm who uses and fabricates a proprietary system that uses light emitting diodes on wire mesh for multimedia effects on building facades. And we can work with other specialty suppliers to help develop an integrated manufacturing process.”
This forward-thinking approach acknowledges the industry call that today designers and builders have to begin working more closely together to arrive at structures offering the best of style and substance, precision and performance which ultimately strives for integrated design. Sierra Metals strives to be on the leading edge of this movement.
Says Kirpalani, “With us, you don’t have to limit your imagination as a designer. You tell us your goal, and together we figure out how to achieve it.”
With high bonding capacity and a proven and respected track record, Sierra Metals embraces the challenges and the demand of today’s ever changing construction market. With these abilities, Sierra Metals can offer competitive pricing in both public and private sector while accommodating any project from concept to completion. For additional information, please reference its website at www.sierra-metals.com. ■

Achievements to date

In just a little over one year, Sierra Metals has scored impressive wins in
“The Miracle in the Desert,” as well as closer to home

Veer Towers
Designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn, with architect of record AAI Architects, these are two 37-story structures inclined in opposing angles at a greater incline than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This was a challenge to fabricators as many of the angles are not 90 degrees, and everything had to be rethought from the straight and narrow. Indeed, the architect’s drawings were conceptual, so Sierra used Revit to redraw them as field drawings to create plans that would yield 1/16 in. tolerances. The custom grid system spans from the avenue grade at
0 ft to the third floor at 62 ft. To make the custom profile for concrete formwork, Sierra created custom aluminum profiles to build a custom curtainwall frame, insulating panels and finish veneer panel. The weathering panels also waterproof the system; some 515 panels were fabricated for this complex design. Part of the City Center complex, this project was a super-paced fast track one, with design, fabrication and installation taking only nine months.
Vdara Condo Hotel
The canopy of this LEED Silver-certified hotel, designed by Rafael Vinoly, is a radius span that is 550 ft in length, and projects 24 ft from the center line of the columns to the outermost point. The structure thus includes 50,000 sf and over 25 tons of extruded aluminum and composite panels. These custom aluminum extrusions were used to create louvers, a sunshade and guardrail system. According to Kirsten Malcolm Gatewood, “The architect designed this challenging façade, and we implemented creative design and fabrication techniques to make it work.” Field-measured radius ACM panel locations made this project a challenge, as did structural hips rafters fabricated from ¾ in. aluminum plate at the sunshade louver. A ½-in, water jet-cut decorative aluminum plate is used as screen with zig-zag pattern. It is just being completed in Las Vegas as part of City Center, and a photograph in the Sierra Metals offices looks uncannily like the original rendering.
City Center pedestrian bridge
The City Center is a 65-acre, multi-building complex in Las Vegas, with each component another jewel designed by a leading architect. Built by Perini Building Co., the entire project is targeting a LEED Gold certification. Two new pedestrian bridge overpasses using 42,000 sf of brushed aluminum composite were extended over Las Vegas Blvd. and Harmon Avenue. Designed by Horizon-West Coast, LLC, and architect of record AI Architects, Sierra Metals was responsible for the cladding the sides and underside of the bridge and the connecting elevators, escalator and landings. It utilized directional brushed aluminum panels to complement the trapezoidal brick bond patterns in the landing areas. Pedestrians headed for Planet Hollywood and other destinations can see changing effects due to varying grain directions. This project demonstrates one of Sierra Metals special talents: the logistical ability to deliver just in time on a crowded site and to build over a busy thoroughfare in a city that never sleeps. Personnel were constantly on the move on the 65-acre jobsite, with the construction offering minimal distraction to tourists and optimal safety.
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Crystal titanium, a specialty product with a unique look, was used for the luminous, color-shifting vertical panels of this magnificent 47-story structure, designed by Kohn Pederson Fox. The impressive structure makes full use of the properties of the metal, which look different in light and dark due to its crystal properties. (see page sm3 for photo) The architect rejected it at first, due to its uneven surface, but a larger sample, plus Sierra’s knowledge of the material’s characteristics, convinced the designer to give it a try, with outstanding results. Zinc panels are used on the fascia and soffit of this exclusive luxury hotel in the Las Vegas City Center, which is part of the City Center’s sustainability initiative as a breakthrough LEED Gold-certified building. ■

More Vegas:
Trump International Hotel Tower
Trump Tower is a luxury resort that offers sweeping, panoramic views of Las Vegas against its backdrop of majestic mountains.
Sierra metals fabricated the brass curtain wall system and the cladding of the entrance doors, vestibule area and chandeliers.

Wynn Encore
Encore is a distinct destination resort
with a repertoire of accommodations,
culinary offerings and Leisure activities. The plate copper roof of this resort is fabricated specially by Sierra Metals with overlapping shingles that were manufactured, detailed, furnished and installed for the vaulted structure. The decorative shingles are in a Kynar finish.
(shown)

Local Projects:
Alpha Technology, Akron, OH (Shown)
American Red Cross, Cincinnati now in design, with fabrication
beginning.
St. Elizabeth’s Emergency Department expansion, Boardman OH
Cambria Suites Arena Hotel near the new Pittsburgh Penguins home. Pittsburgh, PA

Key personnel

Michael Slocombe
Quality Assurance / Quality Control Manager
Quality Management tools that Michael employs provide a process-based quality system to ensure customer satisfaction. “Sierra Metals, Inc. is a customer satisfaction-driven firm, and we welcome Michael’s 30 years of experience as a professional in his field of QA/QC,” says Lopez, owner. The Quality Management System strives, through the use of continuous improvement, to maximize the business performance. Quality is a way of life that is customer-oriented and that will adhere to the best–known methods to prevent errors and eliminate waste. This is best achieved through respect for people and their knowledge. Quality is a way of life at Sierra Metals.
Spencer Grucza
Programming Manager
Spencer brings 35 years of fabrication experience to the company. His department consists of four CNC programmers and/or design fabricators. The CNC router is one of the workhorses of the company and has many versatile uses. The firm has the ability to produce ACM panels in two weeks after receiving approved shop drawings,, while the industry norm is six to eight weeks. The CNC is also used to cut; roofing support cleats can be cut from 1/8” thick aluminum sheet, as can structural supports.
Mike Calhoun
Information Technology, MCP
Mike manages all aspects of day-to-day information technology tasks such as network management (LAN/WAN/WiFi/WWAN), and data security and integrity, and he designed and manages the Sierra Metals Inc., website. He is responsible for maintenance and troubleshooting of all IT-related hardware and equipment such as servers, desktops, laptops, multi-function devices and network peripherals. Mike is a Microsoft Certified Professional with more than 17 years experience in information technology management. He also assists the Programming Department in programming such hardware as the CNC machine via a Planit’s Alpha cam application.

Evan C. Zane, Architect,
NCARB
As the lead architect with five years of experience in the architectural industry, Evan shares talents in project management and coordination. To date key projects Evan has led include Veer Towers in Las Vegas. He assisted in the design of the custom proprietary system and coordination with in-house fabrication by creating detailed drawings for fabrication to insure tight tolerances and design commitment. Early in 2010 Sierra Metals will roll out its Design Studio, where Evan will play a key role in hosting design charrettes, in order to aid designers to go from conception to making their imaginations a reality.
Amrata Kirpalani,
LEED AP, B.Arch (Advanced)
With four years of experience in design, Amrata brings various talents to the company. She has an advanced architectural background from South Africa, international work experience and is also a LEED accredited professional. Since joining Sierra Metals in September 2009, she has been involved with shop drawings and coordination, in projects as recent as the American Red Cross facility and St. Elizabeth’s Emergency Department expansion. With strong communication and presentation skills, she was instrumental in the organization of the Sierra Metal’s Open House held in October 2009.
Kirsten M. Gatewood
Assoc. AIA, CSI, NEO Chapter of USGBC
As part of the Business Development and Estimating Team, Kirsten brings invaluable experience to Sierra Metals. With 20 years of experience in the architectural Industry, she assists with networking, marketing, sales, estimating and bidding. Her 10 years experience of owning a fabrication shop drawing and design services company, with national projects under her belt, is very beneficial to Sierra Metals. Her knowledge of custom metal detailing and shop drawing experience adds to the valuable skill set of this company. Kirsten works in planning with Amrata Kirpalani and is a vital part of the excellent teamwork of the staff.