LAS VEGAS, April 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Nasatka Security CEO John F. Scolaro and Pennsylvania-based Apex Fabrication & Design President Jim Smith Jr. announced their merger today.

Scolaro said, “When Founder Ralph Nasatka, Sr., a Korean War Veteran, founded the company 44 years ago, he started a lifelong business relationship with Jim Smith, Sr., and the Smith family business. After 9/11, Nasatka’s business grew very quickly, and Jim Jr. stepped up to handle our steel fabrication needs by launching Apex Fabrication & Design in 2003. We have done a great deal of business together over the years, ranging from mobile and permanent crash-rated barriers, to rapid prototyping and crash tests. By merging our businesses, we will be one of the very few full-service perimeter security companies with a global presence that manufactures all of its own products in the USA.”

Smith, a veteran engineer and fabrication specialist, grew up around the fabrication shop created by his father out of a central Pennsylvania farm house during the early 70s, when wood burning stoves were in demand due to the gas crisis. Nasatka was one of Smith’s distributors, and the two companies went on to form a relationship that produced some of the very first patented perimeter barrier systems in the world.

Apex President Jim Smith, Jr., said, “We have come a long way from the days of Ralph and my dad paving the way with rapid protypes and patented barriers that helped shape an industry. It’s a wonderful feeling to work with a group of people for so long and trust them with your livelihood. To be able to merge together and take everything to another level is very exciting, for all of us!”
Apex was founded in 2003 by Jim Smith, Jr., to serve the needs of the transportation infrastructure industry. Smith and his team provided parts, components, and assembly services to OEMs whose products shipped worldwide. The 60,000- sq.-ft. facility has 18 work stations and is an industry leader in the design and the manufacture of active and passive vehicle barriers used to protect valuable infrastructure and assets. In addition, Apex is an AISC-certified steel fabricator providing a broad scope of custom metal fabrication services. This includes highway sign structures manufactured under the stringent guidelines of PennDOT’s Bulletin 15, Maryland State Highway Administration, North Carolina Department of Transportation, and other bordering states.

For over 40 years, Nasatka Security has met the evolving needs for vehicle access and perimeter security. Long before 9/11 and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, Nasatka had been a global leader in the innovation, manufacturing, installation, and maintenance service of vehicular access control and perimeter security system solutions. Nasatka’s corporate offices are in Clinton, Maryland, with sales and service locations throughout the USA and in the Middle East.

Nasatka installed the first steel plate “wedge” barrier in the United States (J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.) in 1975 and conducted the first DOS steel-plate barrier crash test in the United States in 1985. Nasatka’s positive countermeasures, including active vehicle barriers (AVB) and passive vehicle barriers (PVB), mitigate the potential damage and loss of life associated with unauthorized vehicle access, including vehicle-borne explosive devices, vehicle attacks on pedestrians, commercial theft, and accidental breaches of secured perimeters. Nasatka’s solutions are deployed at many of the most highly-secured sites in the world. Our solutions are designed primarily to control, detect, and where necessary, stop unauthorized vehicle and pedestrian threats.

“Nasatka’s business is a unique blend of physical and electronic security including crash-tested active and passive (fixed and mobile) vehicle and pedestrian barriers, bollards, and guard booths. Nasatka provides design-to-sustainment services to include: custom design engineering, general construction, and contractual 24/7 service and maintenance programs for thousands of physical security assets throughout the continental United States and around the world,” Scolaro said.

Nasatka’s solutions are consistent with the most stringent commercial and government security standards including; the USACE Army Standard UFGS (UFC 4-022-02), MIL-Handbook – 1013/14, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command Transportation Engineering Agency Pamphlet 55-15/17 (or other applicable) Traffic Safety Solutions, DOJ/USMS, and Department of State – Diplomatic Security (DOS).

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