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When you’re sitting in a ballpark, stadium or arena you might notice the ornate design on the ends of the aisles. Sometimes it could be a team’s logo, other times it could be a generic sports image. Regardless, they are small but memorable touches that add something to a fan’s experience whenever they enter a stadium.

American Seating (Grand Rapids, Michigan) is responsible for a lot of those seats with the extra touches.

Called “standards,” the seat sides are at the end of rows and can be customized with customer-specific painting and burnished with either generic sport logos or custom ones for the team that plays in the facility.  American Seating has relied on its casting supplier Atlas Foundry (Marion, Indiana) for the sides that have been installed in numerous major-league stadiums like Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field, multiple NFL and college stadiums, and even obscure high school facilities like La Joya ISD Stadium in tiny La Joya, Texas, and many in between.

To cast the sides, Atlas uses inserts and 10 universal patterns. Different inserts are used depending on what American Seating's customer wants.

One pattern can be adjusted to make 25 different designs. To accommodate the inclines of rows of bleachers, the seat sides go up in degrees, starting at 2 degrees.

The first stadium that Atlas cast the seat sides for was the Ballpark in Arlington (now called Globe Life Park) for baseball’s Texas Rangers. Built in 1994, the stadium was part of a wave of new parks that tried to emulate the look of older fields. The workmanship Atlas provided was a solid fit for American Seating’s needs, and was another step in the companies’ relationship.

“Without a doubt, I think the ownership’s involved at Atlas,” said Bruce Weener, vice president of customer service, American Seating. “When the ownership’s involved you can develop a relationship and if you can develop a good relationship with somebody, that’s who you want to do business with. We’ve had a good relationship with Atlas’ management for over 20 years.”

That relationship came in handy for American Seating in 2015 when it was putting in new seats for a large football stadium.
The re-seat, and other projects for some minor-league baseball parks, were jeopardized by a dock strike that made it difficult for American Seating to import the products it needed to complete the projects.

Not only did American Seating need the sides, but it also needed parts for the seat centers.

In stepped Atlas, supplying an extra 15,000 castings.

“They stepped up and filled that void,” Weener said. “I’m sure they didn’t fit that in without some pain and suffering on their part. Even though the center standard is made overseas, Atlas supplies all of the seat arms and the pivots for all of these standards. I think their consistent responsiveness has strengthened their position with us.”

When American Seating asked Atlas to improve the grinding finish on the seat sides, the facility installed an automated grinding cell through Vulcan Engineering Co.

It was successful and flexible enough to be used for the metalcaster’s wide mix of work, and Atlas placed an order for the second automatic grinder a year after installing the first.

“The automatic grinder is one of the reasons we can do so many seat ends,” said Bill Gartland, president, Atlas.

According to Atlas, casting sides and other components of seats at stadiums, arenas, theaters and classrooms makes up about 10% of its annual business but can be more if other industries are slowing down.
It’s a niche Atlas has been in for over 20 years. How the metalcaster got into it is a lesson for other companies.

Now-CEO Jim Gartland had a friend who had a lead on some work for Atlas. They went to Grand Rapids to visit American Seating, which coincidentally needed prints tested on a Disa machine “like yesterday” Jim Gartland remembered. Jim Gartland successfully ran the molds, and about a week later he was called for more, which Atlas provided.

“It just took off from there,” Jim Gartland said.“It’s a nice relationship and the work’s pretty consistent. It’s more consistent than I thought it would be.”