Vermont mining companies stay grounded

Vermont Business Magazine, Jan 1994 by Barna, Ed

The Association recently completed its latest survey of member sales. Shattuck said the exact figures are proprietary, but, "I can tell you that it's a little better than last year. Most of the facilities are quite busy," he said, adding that the annual winter slowdown will affect that picture.

Shattuck said people often lump the granite and marble industries together, but they are quite different. Talking with owners of several granite companies brought out a point of competition between the two sectors, related to military headstones.

By far the greatest amount of granite goes for monuments and markers, a market granite dominates because of its reputation for superior durability. But old federal laws specify the use of marble for many military markers -- laws that the granite industry is now pushing to have changed, with some success.

Arguments rage over whether the best marble is equal to granite (marble lovers often point to the Marble Bank facade in Rutland for its durability). One company that works with both stones is Granite Industries of Vermont in Barre, which has a government contract for marble military headstones.

Vice-president Glenn Atherton said that with marble, "There's a lot of fractures in the stone. We throw away about 60 percent. You very seldom have granite that will run a waste factor that high."

Meanwhile, granite manufacturers are under the gun from foreign competition. Rouleau Granite spokesman Peter Quinlan said, "Granite production is labor-intensive, and when you've got a third-world country that has no comparable living standards or health benefits, you just can't compete against that."

India already is making inroads, several company officials said. Quinlan said, "The long-range trends are a scary situation." Roughly 90 to 95 percent of his company's work is in memorials, including veterans' memorials, he said.

But the granite companies have been diversifying. Quinlan called the Rouleau operation, "just a little bit of everything," producing birdbaths and sundials, altars and baptismal fonts, a 25-ton vibration testing bench and a Challenger memorial for the space center in Florida.

Somewhere between 60 and 80 people are employed at Rouleau at any one time, Quinlan said. The high number was probably around 120, he said, but, "We've got a lot of computerized equipment and machinery now."

At Granite Industries of Vermont, Atherton said they, too, manufacture all types of products, importing granite from South Africa, Sweden and more to get all the colors they need.

"Our business has increased steadily over the last five years. Right now our total sales (about $6 million) are up about 12 percent over last year," he said. Next year could see 5-6 percent growth, he said, with about 85 percent of the business in monuments and most of the rest architectural.

For marketing, Atherton said they periodically send a sales representative to canvass an area, which typically adds eight to 10 more retail outlets. "It's a pretty good system," he said.