Still a family affair at Shickel Corp.

One of the more high-profile projects that Shickel Corp., Bridgewater, Va., has been involved with recently is the creation of the top of the newly dedicated Mark L. Butler Tunnel at Maryland Stadium on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park. The turtle shell made its debut in early fall 2019 at the start of the Maryland Terrapins’ football season. Photos courtesy of Shickel Corp.

The FABRICATOR caught Shickel Corp. at a good time on a visit in December 2008 for a profile. The metal fabricator was just named the recipient of the publication’s Industry Award for 2009, and the economy had not yet fallen off the cliff.

The story, “We are all Shickels”, detailed how the Bridgewater, Va., company worked to keep a family atmosphere even as it was growing at a rapid pace, 28% in 2008 alone. Management wanted to include as many of the 100 employees at the time in the cover photo. The family was doing OK in 2008 and even in 2009 as they reached $10 million in annual revenue and concluded some large projects. Meanwhile, many in the metals sector struggled during 2009, dealing with the greatest economic downturn that they had ever experienced.

“2010 was probably the really bad year for us,” said Mark Shickel, who spent 24 years as vice president of engineering and sales until he took over as president of the company from his mother, Helen Shickel, who retired in 2014. “The bad economy hit us pretty late. But about three years later, we were back where we were before the downturn.”

That retrenchment sort of set the company on a new path. By the time the 2000s came around, Shickel Corp. had emerged as a leading provider of fabricating and finishing services for the food processing, particularly poultry, and pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in the area. About half of the company’s business by late 2008 was product design, fabrication, and installation of stainless steel conveyors and platforms and machinery repair. The other half of the business was structural, architectural, and ornamental metals for large construction projects. (“I wouldn’t call us a structural steel fabricator, but we fabricate a lot of structural parts,” Shickel said at the time.) Shickel Corp. also handled installation of those fabrications in many instances.

In the months after the economic downturn, more general contractors and construction firms sought out Shickel Corp. Its background in stainless steel construction and finishing would benefit the metal fabricator as these new projects required a shop that could tackle large and complicated designs with specialty metals and unique finishes. The fabricator embraced the work. This type of fabricating now represents about 80% of the company’s business.

“We like it weird. We don’t like to do the same stuff over and over again. We want to do the projects that nobody else wants to do,” Shickel said. “Our team embraces that.”

Keeping Fab in Fabricating

With these large and unusual projects, the Shickel Corp. family is having fun in metal fabricating.

As an example, Shickel referenced a recent project for the University of Maryland’s football stadium. The fabricator was charged with creating a shelter structure that would cover the front area of the football team’s locker room at Maryland Stadium. The Mark L. Butler Tunnel, named after the former CEO of Ollie’s Bargain Outlet and member of the university’s board of trustees, also covers a bronze statue of the school’s mascot, a Chesapeake Bay diamondback turtle. Football players rub the statue for good luck as they enter the field for home games.

What’s unique about the shelter is that it’s in the form of a turtle shell. The shell, which is 40 feet long and 30 feet wide, comprises several fabricated shapes that when put together looks like a shell left behind by Gamera of Godzilla fame. Red LED lighting on the shell’s interior helps to create an energized environment for the football team before they hit the field and prepare to hit the opponent. Add flames and fireworks during introductions of the team, and people can actually buy into the athletic department’s creed: Fear the turtle!

“They brought us up to the game [on Aug. 31, 2019], and we watched the dedication,” Shickel said. “It was fun to work on a high-profile project that someone made a big to-do out of.”

Tubing provided the framework for the turtle shell.

But with these specialty projects come big expectations. The company worked on the West Campus Union project at Duke University in Durham, N.C., that involved creating a new glass and steel in-fill structure between two wings of a much older stone building. Shickel said they produced at least 1,000 samples of a blackened steel finish before the project overseers found what they were looking for. The final finish called for taking hot-rolled steel, pickling it, washing it, dying it, scratching it, dying it again, scratching it, and then clearcoating it. In another example, a Washington, D.C., commercial building had a balcony made of 3/8-inch aluminum, and the property developer wanted the metal to have a certain stressed quality. The person was really a “metal lover,” Shickel said, and actually came to the shop to show one of the Shickel employees just how he wanted the plate struck to deliver the cluster of marks he was looking for.

“It can be very challenging,” Shickel added. “In the old days, we could put a No. 4 finish on the print, and most people would agree with what a No. 4 finish was going to look like. Well, now with some of these projects you’re trying to pull something out of somebody’s head. You can’t put all that stuff in a spec.”

But the challenges and results have been worthwhile for the company. It has built annual revenue up to $21.5 million and the employee ranks have grown to about 120. The fabricating floor has changed as well over the past decade.

Cutting Cleaner and Faster

Before 2015 Shickel Corp. had relied on a plasma cutting machine and a waterjet for many of its cutting requirements. It entered the laser world five years ago when it purchased a 2.5-kW CO2 laser cutting machine and just recently replaced that with an 8-kW fiber laser cutting machine with a shuttle transfer table from Mazak Optonics.

Shickel said that even with the new laser cutting machine’s increased cutting speeds when compared to the CO2, they’ve still managed to keep the new machine tool cutting with new projects. That’s a testament to the company’s increased business. Shickel added that company engineers did one study on a job that took eight hours on the old CO2 laser cutting machine, but only 90 minutes on the new fiber laser.

“We can do so much more with this as well,” he said. “We can cut 1-in. steel or aluminum. We have the capability to cut copper and brass now.”

The fiber laser also can perform in a way that its predecessor simply couldn’t, according to Shickel. The machine’s speed allows it to create parts with lots of tiny holes in a matter of minutes. It also produces an edge quality on sheet metal of various thicknesses that doesn’t need postprocess touchup in many instances. Shickel said a recent job that required cutting about 200 stainless steel sheets for a conveyor application in a nearby poultry plant came right off the laser and was ready for assembly. No burrs were present, so no edge finishing was required.

In 2018 Shickel Corp. also purchased a TruBend press brake from TRUMPF. The brake has a 14-ft. bed, which allows the fabricator to form long parts, such as trim pieces for architectural applications.

New Tools, Same Skills

The fabricator has seen a shift in its work over the years, and it’s added new fabricating capabilities to keep up with the new opportunities. Even with the changes, Shickel said that the company is still using the same skills that helped to grow the company over the past several decades.

“We’re still cutting, welding, bending, and polishing,” he said. “Of course, we might be polishing in a different way because you are keeping rounded edges for, say, a pharmaceutical customer who is interested in not losing sterility, which can happen with the tear of a glove, and crisp and sharp corners for an architect who has a little different focus.”

One of the largest projects Shickel Corp. has been involved in is the overhaul of Duke University’s West Campus Union. The project goal called for tying new construction to the original Gothic stone architecture. The company fabricated and installed blackened steel panels that acted as a portal between the original building and the new construction. It also fabricated and installed polished stainless steel posts, a grab rail, gutters, light poles, cladding, and mirror-finished stainless steel support posts under a poured concrete walkway.

Shickel Corp. is still designing, building, and installing its fabrications. The latter task, however, has become a more difficult job to fill, particularly as the company has taken on more construction work.

With most of the installation activity taking place away from the company’s home in Bridgewater and the surrounding Shenandoah Valley, installers can be away from home several days in a row. Above-average compensation is a satisfactory reward for some, but others aren’t happy with a lifestyle that has them saying goodbye to their spouses on Monday morning and saying hello again on Friday afternoon.

When people want to step away from the travel, Shickel said that the company tries to accommodate them. That can be hard because Shickel Corp. doesn’t see too much turnover in the shop.

Like other metal fabricators, Shickel Corp. could use skilled welders and fabricators if they were readily available, but that’s just not the case. That’s why they tend to develop talent internally when possible. Shickel said the company has had a good bit of luck doing this with shop floor workers who learned CAD skills and now work on developing 3D models for projects that they might have fabricated themselves in the past.

“When the economy’s so good and everybody’s busy, it can be hard to find people,” Shickel said. Everywhere you go, a restaurant or a car dealership, they are looking for people. Even the radio is full of ads from nearby companies. You never heard that before.”

The dearth of available skilled workers is a challenge, but it hasn’t been a huge impediment to the company’s growth in the years since it won The FABRICATOR’s Industry Award in 2009. Shickel Corp.’s reputation and the skills of its employees have helped to attract projects that are rewarding both in satisfaction and compensation.

“We’re still a family business,” Shickel said, “and we’re still having fun.”

Design, fabrication, and installation of intricate stair systems is a big part of Shickel Corp.’s business. The overhead view of a stainless steel-clad stairway at the United Therapeutics building in Silver Spring, Md., is an example. Along with the stair, Shickel Corp. fabricated and installed corner guards, three egress stairs, cane rails, and ramp rails.