HOUSTON’S OLDEST METAL FABRICATOR USES TECHNOLOGY, ARTISTRY AND ENGINEERING KNOW-HOW TO BUILD THINGS OF FUNCTION AND BEAUTY
Above: Berger Iron Works won the NOMMA Top Job Award for its helix staircase crafted for a Houston Rolls-Royce dealership. The 24-ft.- tall, 15-ton structure twists 540 degrees. See its fabrication on page 12.
December 2022- At the turn of the century, Elmer Ambrose Sperry Sr. designed and built the first gyroscopic compasses and stabilizers for ships and airplanes. Known as the father of modern navigation technology, his inventions— including autopilot—are still used on today’s aircraft. While the devices help to keep planes in the air and on course, they aren’t visible to the millions of passengers who fly in the U.S. Todd Dawson, vice president of fabrication for Houstonbased Berger Iron Works Inc. understands the incongruity of integral elements that perform a critical function out of the public eye. “People enter a building and see stone walls or a sculpture,” he says. “What they don’t see is the steel that holds up that wall or object.”
Supports for jobs like these are part of what Dawson calls “back-of-the-house work.” It falls under the category of miscellaneous, which comprises approximately 40 percent of Berger’s portfolio.
“Ever wonder what it takes to hold up the surgical lights in an operating room?” he asks. “Each location is unique, so each light support is modeled to fit the existing structure and meet tight tolerances before installation. They are also load tested for deflection to ensure the safety of surgeons and patients. It’s the stuff no one else wants to do. But it’s where we get to flex our problem-solving muscles. It’s a niche we’ve continued to grow.”
Miscellaneous jobs usually bring a lot of moving pieces and an unexpected twist or turn, according to Dawson. Plans are acquired from the project engineer, who has reviewed the structure, weights and loads. Berger also receives plans from the architect of record. “Typically these plans have not been fully coordinated even though they are for the same job,” he says. “That’s where we come in. It’s our job to marry the two sets of plans while figuring out how to meet the needs of both the engineer and the architect.”
Berger installed the dealership’s helix staircase in four sections before outfitting it with mirror-finish stainless steel cladding, handrails and low-iron pattern-cut bent glass.
AESTHETICS ON A BUDGET
“We are currently at the tail end of a project where a customer decided to add stairs,” he continues. “They specified a design that called for curves. The cost exceeded their budget. Our field experience and considerable repertoire of past projects allowed us to identify a staircase that satisfied their aesthetic requirements and their budget while meeting engineering demands.”
These types of jobs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the design, engineering, metalworking and old world craftsmanship Berger performs on a daily basis.
The metal fabricator has a long and storied history that can be traced back to 1893. It was founded by Anthony Berger as an ornamental iron fabrication business under the name A. A. Berger Houston Art Metal Works Co. Its reputation, along with its workload, grew. In 1954, the company was incorporated as Berger Iron Works Inc.
Today the metal fabricator serves the commercial construction industry but is also tapped by chic estates in cities like Houston, Galveston and Austin.
“Aside from our miscellaneous projects, 10 to 15 percent of our work is structural and about 50 percent ornamental,” says Dawson. “That business has changed over the years. The materials of choice for ornamental applications use to be nonferrous such as stainless, aluminum and bronze. Now we use a lot of steel with a high-end finish.”
Whether it’s a mix of glass and aluminum extrusions, creating structural shapes that defy gravity or providing a hand-hammered finish in bronze or steel, ornamental and restoration projects give Berger a platform to showcase its diverse capabilities. Because each job is custom, Berger sources the majority of its material from warehouse stock. The metal fabricator typically doesn’t use enough volume to warrant ordering mill quantities, and it finds it prudent to let a service center carry the inventory.
Texas State Capitol’s columns consist of 88 individual pieces that were cataloged, restored and reinstalled to the demanding specifications of the Texas Historical Commission.
With the help of heat induction bending, Berger Iron Works was able to shape three 12-in.-diameter extra-strong pipes into the tree columns that support the leaf canopy for Texas Children’s Hospital | The Woodlands.
PERSONAL TOUCH
Berger meets with customers face to face to uncover and solve any potential problems upfront. “We relish the opportunity to sit down with architects and designers to talk through a project’s variables and any concerns they may have,” says Dawson. “These sessions also allow us to determine those elements that are sacred to the architect.”
Once CAD drawings are signed off on, Berger orders the raw materials, cuts it to length or rolls it and then determines which processing department it will go to next. If the material is too large to handle, the work is outsourced. Depending on a job’s specifications, components may be welded, ground, polished, finished or refinished before being assembled. Fit-up often presents the greatest design challenges for Berger, according to Dawson. “We prefabricate jobs in order to make as few pieces as possible,” he says. “Ideally we like to make a product in one piece. Then we fine tune everything in the field.”
Installation can bring its own challenges. “If a law firm wants a new stairway on the 36th floor, we have to figure out how to get it up there,” he adds.
While the majority of Berger’s customers reside in Texas, the company has handled jobs on the West Coast and as far away as the Caribbean. “For the right client, we’ll go anywhere in the country,” says Berger President Belk Null. “We’ve had jobs cross country that have taken three to four years to complete, requiring us to have personnel on site for months at a time.”
Berger has created ornamental metalwork for three presidential libraries and the Getty Museum and Villa in Malibu, California. It designed and crafted ornamental stainless steel and bronze fencing and a bench at the family burial site for the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library at College Station, Texas. Berger spent eight years on a historical project to carefully restore the ironwork of the Texas State Capitol. Another job required Berger to craft a staircase in the shape of a helix for a Rolls-Royce Motor Cars dealership in Houston. The staircase twists 540 degrees, stands 24 ft . tall and weighs more than 30,000 lbs. Berger won a NOMMA Top Job Award for its design.
This central stringer’s design impacts the style and elegance of the staircase by promoting a sense of lightness and openness in spite of using 1-in.-thick plates. Patterncut outriggers support both the treads and the curved stainless steel guardrails.
LONG HAULERS
Null credits Berger’s success to its people, many of whom have been with the company for decades. Dawson has 22 years invested in Berger, He started out sweeping floors, then worked his way through different departments to the position he holds today. Null has 41 years with the company. Collectively, Berger’s team of artisans and steel experts represent more than 500 years of combined experience.
“We’re a family business where no one is related,” Null says. “In many cases, we’ve witnessed our employees get married, have kids and now grandkids.”
While the unique culture inspires longevity among employees, Null acknowledges it is getting more difficult to find individuals with the skills Berger requires. “It used to be that you had metalworkers who were multi-generational,” he says. “In the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, young people were more trade oriented. A societal shift over the last 20 years or so began to put more emphasis on a college education versus the trades.”
Berger is doing its part to create the next generation of metalworkers and craft speople. The company offers paid internships and participates with Construction Career Collaborative (C3), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, labor-neutral alliance of owners, contractors, specialty contractors, design professionals and industry associations. Members collaborate to establish a safe, skilled and sustainable craft workforce.
“We are such a diverse company in terms of the types of jobs that we take on. I think that Berger has been something of a school for our industry over the years,” says Null. “If someone has integrity and an interest in what we’re doing, we’ll train them. There’s a lot of room for vertical and horizontal movement depending on what a new hire is drawn to.”
While most jobs come to Berger in CAD files, Null acknowledges that the occasional idea is still conceived and sketched out on a napkin. “We’re changing Houston’s skyline and working on projects that will last longer than our lifetimes,” says Null. “We’re a pretty resourceful bunch and we make a lot of really cool stuff.” -FFJ
