Naming Las Vegas: the Tiberti Group

Signs for the Tiberti Co. can be seen all over the Las Vegas Valley — from the fencing near the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign to the VA hospital in North Las Vegas to parks and various government buildings. Tiberti is the largest fence company in the state.

Tiberti was also the general contractor for the construction of Bishop Gorman High School, 5959 S. Hualapai Way, and a number of Tiberti family members are alumni. Tito Tiberti, son of company founder Jelindo Angelo “J.A.” Tiberti, made a donation to the school, and its conference room was named the J.A. Tiberti Conference Room.

“They’ve been very generous in donations to the school,” principal Kevin Kiefer said. “… There was no way we could have afforded this campus if not for the generosity of the community.”

Jelindo Angelo Tiberti hailed from humble beginnings in Colorado. The Great Depression shaped his early years. After studying engineering at the University of Southern California, he came to Las Vegas in the early 1940s with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help build the Nellis Gunnery Range, now Nellis Air Force Base.

He established his own construction company in 1950. As the city grew, projects came in nonstop — hotel and gaming facilities, reservoirs, schools, museums and civic buildings. The company completed various projects at the Las Vegas Convention Center, McCarran International Airport and for the city of Las Vegas.

An unassuming man, Tiberti was known for thinking things through on his daily walk before committing to a project. He built the Levi Strauss facility in Henderson based on a handshake.

Tiberti and his wife, Marietta, a nurse — who has the Marietta Tiberti Grand Hall named in her honor at UNLV’s Richard Tam Alumni Center — had six children and 21 grandchildren. His humorous side was evident on a trip to the Great Wall of China, where he placed a Tiberti Fence sign behind him and posed for a photo.

“He was pretty good at one-liners,” said his son, Renaldo Tiberti, who now runs the business.

The Tiberti family gave $1 million in seed money in 1979 to help create the Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering at UNLV. There also is a nursing scholarship offered at UNLV in honor of Marietta Tiberti. Other organizations that have benefited from the family include the Nevada Ballet Theatre, Opportunity Village, the American Cancer Society and the Boy Scouts of America.

When Renaldo Tiberti looks at Las Vegas, how does he see the city’s growth?

“Being born here, there are several stages that come to mind,” he said. “There’s my boyhood stage, which was kind of a cowboy town. Helldorado was a big deal with the parade, and it was more wild — Wild West — in that way. And then there was the next era where we started to become sophisticated with the hotels — the Stardust, the Flamingo. And then there’s the modern era, what I call the post-Steve Wynn. He kind of ushered in the modern era of the big resorts.”

He said contributions to UNLV were among the company’s proudest achievements, along with Fremont Street and work with the Las Vegas Valley Water District to see that infrastructure was in place to handle the valley’s growing needs.

He said people should remember his father, who died in 2006 at 87, as a pioneer but also someone with simple tastes.

“He didn’t put all this together because he was (egotistical),” Renaldo Tiberti said.

Contact Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan at jhogan@viewnews.com or 702-387-2949.