Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. It’s always hard getting back into the swing of things after having a nice long break, but I’m excited about some of the new things we are launching here at Stone World in 2020.

GK Naquin of Stone Interiors led an engaging morning presentation at the Tampa Stone Summit on October 10, 2019. The day-long event was one of 10 Stone Industry Education sessions organized by Stone World and the Natural Stone Institute across the U.S. This particular one was sponsored by MSI and drew 64 registered attendees.

Home to the University of Tennessee and host to the 1982 World’s Fair, Knoxville, TN, was the destination for the 2019 Natural Stone Institute Study Tour, which drew a total of 66 participants. The four-day event provided an arena for attendees to mingle and network through many sessions and activities.

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.

There is no doubt that our industry is going through monumental changes. During our last Rockhead Group meeting last April, our members had an opportunity to listen to industry leaders about key indicators that are shaping the future of our business. 

Stone World was started by Mike and Stephanie Lench in November 1984. At that time, GranQuartz was busily introducing machinery and equipment for the stone industry to include large diameter (11-6 foot) block saws, automatic abrasive line polishers, edge polishers, etc.

Stone World had the opportunity to view a plentiful supply of beautiful displays of Brazilian stone at several large stone exhibitions this year. The following pages showcase only a sampling of the numerous new stone products that are available from Latin America.  

The Vitoria Stone Fair/Marmo+Mac Latin America will take place from February 12 to 15, 2019 and will be held once again in Vitoria, Espirito Santo, Brazil. The show brings together stone industry members from all over the world, including quarriers and stone processors, equipment and machinery manufacturers, and suppliers of tooling and accessories for stone fabrication.