Making the Cut Page 2
		entry memorial. V. Fontana also is currently working on the Holocaust Memorial for Lincoln Park near the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. "We take as much pride in what we can make as what we sell," said Mark Fontana. That means he's proud of the fact he can take a raw stone and turn it into a product. Fontana stressed that equipment and maintenance at the Colma manufacturing plant is costly, but he's not about to phase out the tradition of crafting monuments from rough granite blocks. "It's what our family learned to do," he said. "It gets in your blood." The rock comes from the Sierras, Texas, Georgia, Brazil and Norway. The company's reputation keeps it going with little advertising. "Families that bought stones from my grandfather, bought them from my father, and now they're buying them from me," said Fontana. He declined to reveal the company's annual sales, but said sales climb nearly 10 percent a year. Finding stonecutters today is no easy task. Seldom is the craft passed		from generation to generation. V. Fontana still relies on the stonecutter founder Valerio Fontana hired in 1953. Pietro Masnada, a 75-year-old native Italian, has worked for all three generations of Fontanas, and still works five or six days a week. He started working with stone building rock houses in Italy. "The boss here won't let me retire," Masnada joked. He's tried to teach up-and-coming stone cutters, but gets frustrated because he questions their work ethic. "They don't like my advice, so I don't teach them," he said in broken English. But Daryl Sowers, 25, has already worked in the shop for 10 years, doing odd jobs and learning what he could about stone cutting. "He's a miniature Pietro, he works so hard," said Fontana. "We do everything custom here," said Phil Fioresi, who handles lettering on the monuments. "We can put anything on them that customers want." Ken Varner, president and chief executive at Cypress Lawn Cemetery in San Bruno, can attest to that. He has Go to Page 3