Stone World and the Natural Stone Institute headed to Wisconsin with its Stone Industry Education (SIE) series to meet with fabricators and learn more about the issues they are facing. The all-day event was hosted by UGM Surfaces at its facility in Oak Creek, WI. The guest speaker G.K. Naquin lead a morning discussion that focused on quartzite and silica, among several other issues fabricators are currently facing.

One of the topics addressed was the variety of stone materials and knowing how to fabricate them. “If we look at granites, there are very few pure granites,” said Naquin. “There are different geological terms and mixtures. Some are stable and you can handle them well. Then you get some that have funky veins that go all over the place, and they fall apart on your table. Not all granites can be treated the same, not all quartzites can be treated the same. You have to treat each one differently.”

Later in the day attendees broke down into two groups, focusing on marketing and business. On the business side of things, they discussed safety equipment and the importance of investing in it. Not only to keep workers safe, but to keep them around longer by making their jobs easier. They also discussed how often meetings should be had within a company and its importance.

For the marketing side of things, focus was placed on customer expectations and how they can be unrealistic and how fabricators should try to deal with them. The goal being to deal with them before it turns into a customer saying, “Where’s my discount?” or “What will you do for me?” The best way to handle many of these things is to be empathetic with the customer and forward facing on it. They also talked about how customer expectation is the highest it has ever been and expectation for cost is highest it’s ever been, so customers have extremely high expectations nowadays for the lowest amount of money.

The next SIE event will take place on September 19^th at MSI’s location in Columbus, OH. For more details and to register, as well as to look at the complete schedule for 2024, visit www.stoneindustryeducation.com.