At the end of August, I traveled up to Portland, ME, to attend a Digital Expo, which was hosted by Park Industries. As with all industry events I cover, I walked away learning something new and meeting new people.

As September rolls around, it’s time for many of us to get back to a routine. School is back in full swing. And in the stone industry, our schedules usually fill up a little more in the fall with what we often like to refer to as “trade show season.”

This summer, American Olean (AO) is conducting intensive product knowledge training with its distributors through a nationwide roadshow stopping at all distributor locations

Slabworks of Montana will host a two-day learning workshop for fabricators at its facility in Bozeman, MT. According to Dave Scott, owner of Slabworks of Montana and Stone World’s 2017 Fabricator of the Year, they will be having fabricator learning modules discussing different topics presented by SFA members.

Universal Granite & Marble (UGM) graciously opened their doors to 30 fabricators, in addition to other members of the stone industry, for the Wisconsin Stone Summit, which is organized by the Natural Stone Institute (NSI).

2018 has definitely been busy so far. I've traveled everywhere from Vegas to Xiamen to Atlanta to our headquarters in MI. In the last few weeks, I have visited the Natural Stone Institute’s office in Oberlin, OH, and one of our workshops in Milwaukee, WI.

The Stone Industry Education seminar program for 2018, sponsored by Stone World magazine and the Natural Stone Institute, started this year’s series in Austin, TX, hosted by Arizona Tile.

For some fabricators, expanding and growing the business means getting new machines, leasing out a larger plot of land and building bigger shops. But Bill Wyman, who has a philosophy of doing more with less, has been able to propel his fabrication business to one of the top performing in the area.

International Masonry Institute (IMI) will host a Tile Marble Terrazzo (TMT) educational conference for design and construction professionals in six U.S. cities in 2018.