Anvil Steel
Founded in 1973 by Phil Shallenberger, Anvil Steel was originally housed within a 10,000 square foot facility in Gardena, California. Anvil began as a fabricator and erector of light structural and miscellaneous steel for the local beach communities of Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach. Anvil’s original plant had a single overhead bridge crane and a rail bay for ornamental work.
In 1985, with the booming southern California economy, Anvil built a new 18,000 square foot crane bay with several overhead bridge cranes across the street from the original plant. Sales multiplied, with the number of employees increasing from 9 to 32.
Phil sold Anvil to Paul Schifino in 1996. Building on the reputation built by Phil of providing the highest quality product for a reasonable price, Paul set Anvil’s sights on expanding into the commercial market. Over the next decade, we expanded our facility from 40,000 square feet to 10 acres by acquiring adjacent properties. Our current capacity is over 450 tons per week and we have 270 full-time employees.
As we have expanded, our customer base has grown, from contractors building small homes and apartment complexes to include contractors building:
- Commercial buildings such as Office Depot and Costco store
- Office buildings and malls with up to 2,500 tons of steel
- Schools, police stations, firehouses, libraries and other public buildings
- Custom homes with up to 350 tons of steel
We now supply and transport steel to all fifty states. Approximately 40% of our steel is supplied nationally, with the balance being supplied to the Southern California market.
Junior Steel Co.
Wind back the clock to 1948… Junior Steel was a distributor and fabricator of Junior Beams and Channels which were manufactured by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation. When Glenn Bustrum, a WW II Vet and USC grad bought the company in 1958 he began developing the California Open Web Beam still seen all over Disneyland. For 35 years the Junior Steel Co. operated one of the largest steel fabrication / erection businesses in the Southern California area completing significant size projects like Irvine Medical Center, San Juan Capistrano Mission Church, Riverside Metro and others. In 2003 Paul Schifino bought Junior Steel and moved it to Gardena next to the Anvil Steel facility. Junior Steel’s key employees including Gerry Bustrum, Scott Bustrum, Dave Pisarski, Roger Montano and Steve Arizmendi still continue to contribute to the Junior Steel success story.
As the company grew it was evident expansion was inevitable. In November, 2016 Richwell Steel Co., Inc. was brought into the Junior fold. Richwell was founded in 1947 and grew to be one of the more respected midsize steel fabricators & erectors in Southern California. Not only did this acquisition bring new clients to Junior it most importantly added a facility that doubled the land and crane capacity of the Anvil plant. As a result, the ability to do more and larger projects became possible. Steve Prochnow, Nick Prochnow, Chris Prochnow and Mike Kline added years of steel fabrication experience to the Junior staff all resulting in doubling the annual volume and capability of Junior Steel.