I feel I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up the issue of shop safety after recently hearing about another tragic accident where falling slabs took the lives of two shop workers. It was just another day for these workers until the unimaginable happened.
It only took me 23 years, but I finally made it out to visit the Indiana Limestone Belt. I’d have to say it was long overdue. A big “thank you” goes to my friend Todd Schnatzmeyer at the Indiana Limestone Institute who made my excursion possible, along with all of the companies that graciously welcomed me into their quarries and mills.
In this month’s Industry Perspective, Joey Marcella writes about when attending a trade show, workshop or other industry event, you should walk away with a “couple of good ‘nuggets’ of information.” I couldn’t agree more.
As I write this, I’m sitting at Newark International Airport in New Jersey waiting for my flight to Indianapolis to board. My final destination is Bloomington, where my friends from the Indiana Limestone Institute will take me on a tour of several quarries in the area.
Often I ask architects and designers why they favored natural stone for a particular project, and more frequently than not I hear responses such as: “It’s timeless.” “We needed something durable.” “We wanted to use a local material.” These are all excellent reasons, and as members of the natural stone industry, music to our ears.
During the many years that I have been with Stone World I have sat in on more fabricator forums, workshops and other industry events where ideas and experiences are discussed than I can count.
As you might have heard already, Stone World is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. And since so much has changed in the stone industry since then, we thought we'd have a feature highlighting pivotal moments throughout the decades.
In this issue, you will see that we address the subject of shop safety, which I think everyone agrees is an important topic. In a matter of seconds, one wrong move or misjudgment can lead to an accident, or even more tragic to think about – a fatality.
As we often do at the end of the year, myself and our staff took some time to look back on 2018 to reflect on what we have done and come up with some fresh ideas for our readers. And in particular, 2019 is an important year to put some special plans into place, as we will be celebrating Stone World’s 35th anniversary.
The polls closed earlier this week for the 2018 Stone World Fabricator of the Year Award. As I checked the vote count from time to time, it was exciting to see the race between the well-qualified candidates. Unfortunately, we can only honor one person in the end, but all those who were nominated were deserving of the title and we appreciate all of you who took the time to vote!
RSS
