Slippery Rock Gazette

Peter J. Marcucci

Photos Courtesy Adobe Walls Stoneworks 

Above: Wrap-around graphics on the AW Install truck fleet also serves as mobile advertising for the company.

Above: AW Stoneworks showroom,  with customer service representatives Tina, Torie and Madison.

Chances are good that you have heard the axiom, “A strong building starts with a good foundation,” or, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.” These guiding philosophies mixed with the ability to envision what’s possible allowed Justin Howe, president of Adobe Walls Stoneworks, to put a failing company back on track toward success. As you’ll see, Justin’s efforts to excel under such rare circumstances were, to say the least, unique. This is his story. 

“My dad, Danny Howe, was a general contractor during the late 1980s through 1990s,” recalled Justin. “He was a carpenter and cabinet maker by trade and owned a cabinet shop named Adobe Walls Woodworks, named after the Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874. Unfortunately, Dad was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and prostate cancer in the late 1990s and had to spend a lot of time off recuperating.” 

Unhappy with a local granite fabricator’s quality, when Danny Howe was able to work again, he began cutting granite countertops using a worm-drive handsaw against a straight edge. 

Simultaneously and unbeknownst to Danny at the time, embezzlement was taking place by a company insider, therefore putting the company in dire straits. Justin, fresh out of pilot school, stepped in to try and make something out of the fabrication end of the company.

“Dad owed the IRS $50,000 due to the stolen tax deposits,” he continued. “So we made a deal with the IRS to pay $10,000 up front and $40,000 in six months. Fortunately, the IRS agreed to this. So I sold a few family-owned vehicles, gave the IRS their first payment of $10,000, paid dad $10,000 and took over the business. That was in late 2001. Then, I officially formed the company in 2002 at about the same time I finished paying off the IRS. It was then off to the races as a granite fabricator. Since then we’ve gone from zero in sales to $4 million this year. We got there with no windfalls and survived the downfall of 2008. We did have to ask everybody to take a day off sometimes, but never had to lay-off or fire anyone. Fortunately, after just a few months, we had to bring everyone back in full-time because we figured out how to get our sales up a little bit. This year is our official 15th anniversary.”   

Commercial installation for the Metropolitan Speak Easy

Above: Justin Howe

Above: The team at AWS loves to collaborate with their customers to create their perfect kitchen.

From Worm-Drive to Cutting-Edge

According to Justin, most employees are tenured and have been with the company since the beginning. “They come to work every day, and all participate in the big picture,” he continued. “We focus more on our people than our profits, and we feel deeply responsible to those who have given their lives to this company. So we try and give back all we can. We are all on the same team, and nobody works for anybody; we are all equal. So yes, I feel we’ve got the best team in the industry and all are assets to this organization. ‘We Prioritize The Person’ is our motto, and that starts with the people inside our company. We still run a business, we still have to be profitable and try not to get too involved in each other’s personal lives, but we do care and look out for each other. We are very much in tune with their birthdays, their special events and their needs, and you can see the effect of this in the length of time everybody has been here. We also pay real salaries to our leadership, with real career positions. We figured out how to be profitable and also pay people a good wage. 

“Secondly, we are the most sophisticated fabricator in the area, with the largest inventory, and use the most technology in the market. We use lasers and computers while a lot of our competition still uses tape measures and wood strips to make templates. We’ve got a lot of technology; we advance with technology and we change with technology. We are always upgrading everything and look for the most efficient way to do things, that creates the highest yield. We have also built our system to work at a steady pace, so if someone takes time off, we are not all scrambling.” 

That technology, said Justin, includes an array of Park Industries cutting and shaping equipment, and multiple jib cranes strategically placed throughout the 12,000 square foot shop. Production personnel includes seven fabricators and three full-time installation crews, with the remaining 10 personnel in sales, as designers or management. Total footprint of the facility is 75,000 square feet, with 2,000 square feet for offices and showroom, and 25,000 square feet dedicated to their more than $1 million inventory of natural and engineered stone.

AWS shop and fabrication specialists, in front of their Park Fusion.

Above: Massive single-slab conference table for client consultation.

Justin has seen the market change over the past seven years, going from an almost exclusive high-end customer base, installing mostly granite, to a 65% high-end and a 35% smaller residential demographic mix of granite and engineered stone.

Above: The extensive AWS slab yard holds about $1 million in slab inventory, mostly sourced through AG & M.

AWS is the leading granite shop in their market, attributed to using the most efficient fabrication practices, and their exceptional customer service.

Adobe Walls Stoneworks does not buy slabs locally, said Justin, but does buy regionally from Dallas, Austin and Oklahoma City, with much of it being purchased through the Artisan Group.  

“We’ve been a member of the Artisan Group for three years,” explained Justin. “The main thing is that it’s a mastermind group of people who can get together and ask questions, share best practices and talk about the mistakes we’ve all made. It also allows us to partner with other fabricators to buy bulk quantities of imported materials. We’ve got guys in the group that do $50 million a year in sales.” 

Architectural Marble and Granite (AG&M) is a great asset to the Artisan Group. “The Artisan Group are solid guys who run their businesses correctly, and we are glad to be a part of it.” 

Adobe Walls Stoneworks is the largest fabricator in the Texas Panhandle, said Justin, adding that their scope of service extends far and wide. “Our everyday radius is within 120 miles of Amarillo, but we will go up to 200 miles servicing Eastern New Mexico, the Oklahoma Panhandle and Western Oklahoma. If we can get there and back in a day, it’s no big deal.”

All of the company’s sales personnel are experienced in design and regularly work one-on-one with their homeowner clients. Some clients, however, do bring in their own designers as well as their builders and remodelers. 

“We are increasing our sales weekly and our sales budget is steadily increasing. Every morning we have a 30-minute production meeting, and a sales meeting once a week. It’s a requirement for everyone to log these meetings. We run it like a real business, letting our people and our systems run the show. There is no micro-managing or making decisions on the fly, either. We give our people responsibilities, expect results, and hold them accountable.” 

According to Justin, sales are 90 percent granite and 10 percent engineered stone products, with sales shifting from 99 percent granite to 90 percent over the last two years. 

“Seven years ago our demographic was upper high-end clientele. Today our customer base is much broader, and we are doing a lot of smaller homes along with our high-end exotic work. Sixty-five percent of our sales is to a higher income demographic, while 35 percent could be any homeowner. We also have financing available, so we are appealing to a broader clientele. We are very, very focused on marketing, but we’re also very focused on the types of marketing, and don’t spend a lot of money using a shotgun approach. And of course we ask for referrals when we follow-up with our customers. I love the retail part of this business, the customer interaction and the ability to communicate with my customers.” 

Making Profits While Helping the Environment

About five years ago, Justin created a procedure called the “Ecostar Process.” Customers who use this process get an additional 15-year warranty on their countertops, he explained. “It’s beneficial to our customers and to the fabricators we license it to. Two of the requirements to being an Ecostar Process licensed fabricator are that you have to recycle 80 percent of your water and recycle all of your granite. We have a guy in town that picks up all of our scraps and takes them to a crusher. It is then used for landscaping or as aggregate for use in roadways. Sending it to the landfill or cutting it into little pieces to sell just didn’t seem to make any sense to us.” 

At the moment, the company is not on OSHA’s radar, so to speak, said Justin, adding that he does, however, know how OSHA operates. “We have a safety program that we strictly adhere to. There were some accidents in the area, not at our company, but at others. So many, many years ago we started our safety program with weekly meetings and safety chats. Additionally, everybody has the right to stop anyone from doing something perceived as dangerous. We mostly use water for cutting and wear respirators if needed for those rare occasions when we dry cut outside of the shop. So dust is not a problem. We play by the rules and designed this company to be profitable and still comply with OSHA rules.” 

A Few Observations and a Future Built on Them

Justin continues: “I think that the fabrication business is primarily made up of craftsmen who turned into businessmen, because they didn’t want to work for someone else. I also think that the opportunity for fabricators nationally is huge. If you’re running a fabrication facility and you don’t have any retail presence, I think that is a failure. I mean I’m not against Home Depot and Lowes selling granite, but what I am against is customers having a bad experience with a sub-par product. This business is so complex that there is no room for subcontractors. From start to finish these projects need to be handled by the fabricator, and I think that this industry fails if we are just doing wholesale work for others, because the quality just isn’t there. The (big box) salesmen promise things that they just can’t fulfill, and that hurts the industry overall. So if there is anything I would want to tell other fabricators, it’s that you don’t have to be a wholesale-only fabrication shop. 

“Another thing is that we are not in the flooring business. Being a fabricator and a flooring company is like being in two different businesses. We are expert granite fabricators and we do what we do and we do it the very best we can. But we don’t focus on anything but countertops, so there is no doubt when you walk in here that you’re going to get the best quality. You can’t argue with a million dollars worth of robots, a million dollars worth of inventory, and experienced people who are happy to meet you. 

“Currently, our production is running at about 50 percent of capacity, so our goal is to fulfill the current production ability of this facility. When we get to that point, we might look at another fabrication facility. 

“Additionally, we are actively pursuing the buying of other fabricators in other markets and opening showrooms in other markets. 

“It ensures the retirement of our people, and for that reason we have the responsibility to grow. We share profits to all the leadership, and in a few years I’m going to start selling shares to all of our employees. Once we reach a benchmark in sales, productivity and market share, I’m going to structure it so that all employees can participate in stock purchases. I don’t believe in 401Ks. We operate with real math and make real money, and I want my employees to be part of that, so at the end of this journey they all have something. I feel that they’ve given us part of their lives, and I want to give back.”

As for Justin’s dad, Danny, he has fully recovered from his cancer, still has MS (but is mobile) and continues to enjoy retirement. 

For more information about Adobe Walls Stoneworks visit www.AWStoneworks.com .