Jaba Pro Stone Corp. is a collaboration of three experienced and dedicated stone industry professionals who were driven to establish a successful mass countertop production facility. The company’s principal owners are Jose Agustin Bustamante, president; Valerie G. Bustamante, vice president; and Oscar P. Infantas, COO.

Based in the Miami, FL, area, Jaba Pro opened its doors on July 27, 2011 as a mass production countertop fabricator and installer servicing strictly builders and developers of custom residential new homes and commercial projects in South Florida. The owners have a combined experience in the business of more than 50 years. Jose Agustin Bustamante is a civil engineer with a graduate thesis/study of “Applications of Ornamental Stones in Construction,” who started in the business in the late 1980s. Oscar P. Infantas has more than 20 years of experience in the business running custom high-end home, high-rise and production residential home projects.

“We have three facilities,” said Jose Agustin Bustamante. “The office and main fabrication shop is about 17,000 square feet in Hollywood, [FL], a second shop in Miami is approximately 7,800 square feet and our slabs storage facility is 6,500 square feet, which holds more than 100 different quartz and marble colors — only for our production.”

Putting the right machines in place

Jaba Pro manufactures and installs any variety of natural stone, as well as quartz and Corian countertops. Monthly production ranges from 14,000 to 16,000 square feet, while the company has a monthly capacity of 18,000 to 20,000 square feet.

To output the amount of material Jaba Pro does, it requires a lineup of state-of-the-art machinery. The company opted for a diverse range of equipment from Poseidon Industries, including two 
PT – 7000 automatic bridge saws, two Odeon automatic bridge saws, a Trident 565 belt drive edge polisher with 14 heads, a Guardian CNC 3-axis stone machine center with dual tables, four jib cranes with 1000 Kg weight capacity and four WF6B ST water recycling systems. Additional equipment in the shop includes three AerPro stone dust air cleaners, two Donovan DV 30 T screw compressors and three Taurus OMA Digispeed stone routers.

Continuing with expansion, the company also recently purchased a brand new Poseidon Viking III CNC bridge saw, which was installed in early June. “It has increased cut-to-size production for the Trident and the CNC stone center’s high-demand production,” said Bustamante.

Jaba Pro uses hand tools from Makita and Metabo, as well as accessories from Tenax, Terminator, Cyclone and Tyrolit. “Our main shop suppliers are GranQuartz and Omicron Supplies,” said Bustamante.

To keep production moving along, the company runs two shifts Monday to Friday and one shift on Saturday. In total, there are 45 employees between the office management, fabrication shops and installers.

There are four installation crews and two customer service teams. The company’s fleet of vehicles include: two Ford Transit vans, two Isuzu box trucks, a Ford F-450 flat bed and three F-250 pick-up trucks.

For templating, workers use an ELaser digitized templating system from ETemplate Systems. “It helps to increase the process of work/fabrication orders to our CNC stone center machine, and it will also help with the upcoming CNC saw,” explained Bustamante. “It reduced the amount of time measuring complicated layouts compared to the wood stick templating.”

Providing countertops for all residential applications

Jaba Pro primarily services Southeast and Southwest Florida. “We focus on residential work that not only involves kitchens,” said Bustamante. “Our jobs are 95% countertops for all areas — kitchens, bathrooms, wet bars, laundries and summer kitchens. Our production range is 18 to 20 houses per week.” Bustamante added that on average, the size of the kitchens range from 100 to 120 square feet and 185 to 350 square feet for complete homes.

“We are Natural Stone Institute (NSI) and Stone Fabricator Alliance (SFA) members, certified with Corian and most of the quartz brands available in the market and EPA-certified,” said the fabricator. “The last three years, our annual sales growth increased by 25 
to 30%.”

Among some recent projects completed by Jaba Pro are Mill Creek by Cal Atlantic Homes, Regatta Landings by Cal Atlantic Homes, Cobblestone by Standard Pacific Homes, Valencia Cove by GL Homes of South Florida, Olympia by Minto Communities, Artesia by Minto Communities, Porto Sol by Minto Communities, Latitude by The Spear Group, Um Frost School of Music by Skanska USA and Dycom Industries corporate office total bank corporate offices – Miami.

“Our short-term goals are to open a new larger facility in the beginning of next year with brand new machines to increase our production and service,” explained Bustamante. “Also, we will start before the end of this year a retail sales business venture in Costco with Cambria quartz surfaces. Our long-term goals are to expand our operations to Central and Northern Florida and starting a fourth facility in the West Coast of Florida.  q