Front Range Steel: three generations of builders

By Gary Raham
Wellington Correspondent

Jesse Stribling began building with steel in the 1960s in Atlanta, Ga. His picture now hangs in the lobby of Front Range Steel in Wellington, a company started by his son, Robert.

Robert Stribling moved to Wellington in the late '80s and liked the looks of the small community he found near the interstate highway. Today, Robert's son, D. Adam Stribling, is vice president of the company located just east of the railroad tracks on Jefferson Street (County Road 62).

"I like the challenges of pleasing customers and of managing men and women," he said.

Front Range Steel performs shop services like cutting, punching, drilling, shearing and welding. In the field, its crews also weld, measure, erect buildings and offer light duty crane service. Employees constructed the Rangeview Medical Offices west of the dog tracks along Interstate 25 and helped remodel Whole Foods in Fort Collins. About six years ago, they worked on the new Fort Collins municipal building on North Mason.

They've also worked on schools in the Fort Morgan area. At home in Wellington, they provide walk-in welding services for local farmers and others.

As Wellington continues to grow, Stribling is seeing an increase in residential projects like house beams, stairs and rails. Every day his small fleet of two semi-trucks and 10 flatbed trailers keep busy delivering products to customers.

"Coordinating with customers on deliveries may be the biggest challenge in the business," said Stribling, "but things really run quite smoothly. I just deal with each problem as it comes."

Front Range Steel employs 40 people, 14 of them from Wellington. "I like hiring local people," Stribling said. "It makes sense."

He added that he's hired a number of men from the Denver Rescue Mission's Harvest Farm north of Wellington. "We hope they'll stick around when they graduate from the program there," he said.

Many of Front Range's employees do stick around, and Stribling likes to promote from within the company when he can. He gives an example of one man who early on showed promise in doing more challenging detail work, so the company saw that he got the opportunity to learn. He's still there today.

Front Range Steel has always enjoyed a good relationship with the town, Stribling said. His father, in appreciation of the town's help in finding a good site for his business, donated a strip of land along the east side of Boxelder Creek for a future bike path. Bill Bodkins, the town's public works director, said a trail system through Wellington, including a portion through the strip of donated land, could well be a part of a master plan the town is working on this year. The town will be looking for Great Outdoors Colorado or other funding and would need to secure rights of way for some other areas along the creek, he said.

Like Wellington, the company continues to grow. "Looks like we'll have to expand again pretty soon," Stribling said, looking up at some struts in the ceiling that marked the limits of the building when his father first arrived in town.

Fortunately, the business occupies 5.5 acres, so there's plenty of room. It's fitting that a builder knows enough to leave lots of area to practice his trade.

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles about light manufacturing employers in the Wellington area, where community leaders are hoping to attract more jobs for local residents.