Rock-Solid Enterprise Grows
Rodger Embury has always had a thing for rocks.
Thirty years ago, the Los Angeles city firefighter started pouring concrete as a sideline to supplement his income on his days off. And it was only a matter of time before the avid hiker started trying to shape the cement into replicas of the mountainsides and waterfalls he admired in the High Sierra.
“I got tired of doing flat work and pouring cement. There’s no art work there,” said Embury, 62, who retired from firefighting in 1986 and has since been president of Rock & Water Creations in Fillmore.
Over the years he has crafted more than 100 rubber molds of cliff panels and boulders--based on rock formations he discovered while backpacking with his family in the High Sierra.
Embury’s hollowed-out rock formations are about 90% lighter than the real thing. The light weight provides more flexibility to create natural-looking settings--from waterfalls in craggy mountainsides to pebble-bottomed streams that flow into lagoons and backyard swimming pools.
Embury’s company, with about $1.5 million in annual sales, has installed artificial cliff panels and faux boulders around swimming pools and lagoons worldwide, including a Hong Kong apartment complex with 65,000-square-feet of pools and waterfalls.
From Golf Courses to Zoos to Museums
Rock & Water Creations has completed water features for the Smithsonian Institution, golf resorts in Palm Springs, the San Diego Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo’s meerkat exhibit, and a courtyard fountain at the Disneyland Hotel.
Clients Bob and Barbara Miesky learned of Embury through their landscaper two years ago, shortly after moving into their Camarillo home with its mostly flat half-acre backyard.
“We are outdoor people, and we wanted to get the Sierras down into our backyard,” Barbara Miesky said.
So Embury constructed one waterfall that tumbles 10 feet from a manufactured cliff face into a swimming pool surrounded by birches and sequoias. A second waterfall cascades into a spa that is set up higher in the rock creation and flows into the pool.
Developmentally Disabled Workers Help
Back at his two-acre site in Fillmore, Embury has surrounded himself with a small but hard-working staff that includes a crew of developmentally disabled adults who do maintenance and clerical work at the facility.
One of the first things Embury did after moving his warehouse and manufacturing facilities from San Bernardino County seven years ago was contact Arc Ventura County, a nonprofit organization that provides residential and vocational services for the developmentally disabled.
Embury was the first businessman in the Fillmore area to sign on for a countywide program designed to get people with developmental disabilities working in the community.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve done,” said Embury, who now uses at least three Arc workers daily, in addition to his other 10 employees. “I’m just lucky I have this facility where they can come every day.”
His success with the Arc program has sparked other businesses and suppliers in the area to sign up to be job-training sites.
“He has opened a lot of doors to show other businesses what a difference these people can have in their lives,” said Carol Wood, a program supervisor for Arc Heritage Valley, which oversees the work program in Fillmore, Santa Paula and Piru.
