Space-age building material plant employs 60

Navajo Nation council speaker Lawrence Morgan watches as Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley Jr. lifts up a block of FlexCrete, an alternative building material that weighs only 20 percent of a comparable size piece of concrete block. The president and speaker toured the new production facility Tuesday afternoon in Page, Ariz. (Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent)

By Pamela G. Dempsey
Diné Bureau

PAGE, Ariz. — From a long pipe, a mixture of fly ash and cement pour out slowly into a mold that looks like a giant bread pan.

The mold is only filled half-way with the gray stuff, yet within ten minutes, is filled completely as the mixture doubles on its own.

After curing for almost 24 hours, removed from the mold, and cut down to size, a new building product has emerged.

And for the new FlexCrete Building Systems LC plant located near Lake Powell, it means a new beginning as well.

On Tuesday, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., Speaker Lawrence Morgan, Navajo Housing Authority's Chief Executive Officer Chester Carl, and Page City councilors came to watch a demonstration of the plant that is expected to increase revenue to the housing authority, create jobs in the Page area, and improve building materials in homes constructed by the Navajo Nation.

FlexCrete aerated concrete a material made up of 70 percent fly ash, 30 percent cement and millions of air bubblescould give cement blocks, an old favorite, some competition.

Navajo Housing Authority joined up with Headwaters Inc., a Salt Lake City-based technology developer, to create the new company..

"I fell in love with the material," said Ryan Creamer, vice president of technology for FlexCrete. "It is basically fire-proof material."

Modeled after building materials in Europe, the concrete look-alike "builds a much tighter home" Creamer said.

Unlike concrete, however, the new product is lighter, absorbs impact, and is "extremely workable", he said.

It also insulates a building or home against sound, heat, and Mother Nature's wrath.

The project was first proposed to Former President Kelsey Begaye as just another company with something to sell to the Navajo Nation, but morphed into a proposal which gave Navajo Housing Authority full ownership of the production plant as well as a 10 percent stake in the entire company.

The housing authority will use the new product set to be marketed commercially in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and Albuquerque in its homes. The company is also in negotiations with Home Depot.

Navajo Housing Authority bought 10 acres for the plant from the City of Page, and that land has now increased in value by 42 percent.

Dan Brown, a Page city councilor, said the council facilitated the land deal.

Page, he said, is "land rich, but job poor."

The company will employ nearly 60 people and purchase its fly ash, the by-product of coal when used to make electricity, from the nearby Navajo Generating Station. The generating stations produces 500,000 tons of fly ash per year; FlexCrete will purchase approximately 30,000 tons a year to make materials for an estimated 1,100 homes.

"There's enough applications for the material that I would probably spend the next 30 years of my life playing with the material," Creamer said.

Leonard Teller, chair of the Navajo Housing Authority's board of directors, said the applications of the material have yet to proven.

"It sells itself," Teller said.

— To contact reporter Pam Dempsey call (505) 879-1709 or email pamelagdempsey@msn.com