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Employees of Fig Tree Steel can build their careers and make a good living while helping build communities all over the country. Fig Tree is a structural steel fabricating company that provides the framework for buildings.
Career opportunities at Fig Tree range from welders, painters and forklift drivers to administrative workers.
“ With the right skills and training, you can build a successful and stable career at Fig Tree,” said Robert Keating, CEO and President of Fig Tree Steel.
Fig Tree began many years ago in Springdale as a small structural steel business before evolving into a major steel fabrication company with 50 employees.
“ We work with major construction contractors in Northwest Arkansas and nationwide,” Keating said.
The company’ s projects include commercial and automotive industry facilities, hospitals, hotels and municipal and educational facilities.
Fig Tree makes its products by purchasing steel for its columns, beams, and other parts, and cutting them to size to match the customer’ s building plans. The process of cutting the steel to size is automated.
“ It’ s fairly simple to do,” said Charles Thomas, Production Control Department Manager.“ Our machine can do much more than what we ask of it.”
Thomas, 24, handles the computer programming for the machine that cuts the steel parts. He was first hired as a programmer but was promoted to Production Control Manager based on his job performance.
The parts have to be sized exactly, with very specific tolerances, Thomas said. He explained that walking the production floor and understanding the entire fabrication process is necessary.
“ You have to understand what will work with what the workers can do,” Thomas said.“ You are writing the plans for someone else to carry out. Sometimes what works on paper does not work on the floor.”
Thomas has an associate degree, but said a college degree isn’ t required to be successful at Fig Tree.
“ You could do what I was hired to do without any college,” Thomas said.“ I took some high school classes in machine shop and Auto CAD( computer-aided drafting). That would have been enough without the associate degree. College did help, though.”