Some Shops are Alive and Well by Lee Jansen
		A stonecutter and his shop were once the heart of the monument industry. "You don't see new shops opening anymore," says memorialist Mark Fontana. "Shops are from another era. They're dinosaurs." To reduce overhead, some memorialists have shuttered their once bustling shops and redirected their focus to the sale of precut monuments. And some retailers, who open small storefronts and sell from catalogs, may never have seen the inside of a shop. Not Mark Fontana, owner of V. Fontana & Co. in Colma, Calif. "Our shop is what we are," says Fontana. "We're manufacturers. Seeing a block of stone become a monument is what our business is all about, and we take a lot of pride in the process of memorialization. I get more pleasure out of making something than selling something." V. Fontana & Co. was founded in 1921 by Fontana's grandfather and has always included a shop. Today, the		business has two locations--a four-story office building and a nearby shop. "We may be the last self-contained fabricating plant on the West Coast," notes Fontana. The shop is about 8,500 square feet and includes a contour wire saw, a custom-engineered Savage diamond saw, a heavy-duty Lane surface polisher, a coring machine, a 15-ton overhead hoist, sandblast and shape-carving booths, a computer room, and a layout area. "We're always buying new equipment," says Fontana. "Maintaining and upgrading the shop is a continuous process." Since Fontana began managing the business 20 years ago, the company has expanded its commercial production. "Monuments make up about half of our current productions," says Fontana. "The other half includes signs, benches, countertops and fireplace surrounds." Go to Page 2