Page 2 - Demo

2|November 2019 Lyons
Sandstone
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Then, of course, as the wind would blow, it would blow from different directions, so you never see absolutely level sand dunes. You see hills and valleys, and our stone follows all of those lines and is kind of unpredictable.”
In 2008, before the couple knew there was going to be a mas- sive recession coming, they had reached the point that direct mar- keting to masons was needed to acquire the big building projects, explained Brenda.
“At the time, we thought that some of the distributors we were selling to would land some big jobs, but I’m sorry to say that we just didn’t know how things worked. So it took a while to break into that market, because it’s scary to a mason to use a new supplier, because if a supplier can’t deliver, the consequences are grim. So, we bought a few bridge saws, think- ing that if we have the equipment, the business will come. Well, we did get the business but, unfortu- nately, we didn’t have the build- ing to put the equipment in and put up a 30-foot by 40-foot tent and heated it with propane to keep the water from freezing. We got through that winter and had es- tablished that we were a company that could deliver on time and our service was good. These projects also tended to be well funded and made up for a lot of the residen- tial and landscape markets that we lost because of the economic downturn.”
Soon after, the couple took a deep breath, took stock of the situation, and built a 5,000 square-foot building to house the equipment. The smell of success was in the air, and the whirring of saw blades was everyone’s favorite tune. The company had now shifted into second gear and was gaining momentum. So much so, in fact, that two more 5,000 square-foot buildings would soon be placed on the drawing board to house the next wave of equipment that included a bridge and wire saws, a waterjet, CNCs, splitters and polishers. But, according to Bernard and Brenda, there is still not enough space to place their
Lyons Sandstone’s GraniRoc wire saw is their main production machine for raw block production.
Below: Their Simec Stratos Nesting Bridge Saw is a mutlitask- ing workhorse. The white boom is a camera station, allowing them to determine the most efficient way to process incoming slabs like the one on the roller bed, under the camera boom. Lyons Sandstones uses three Park Industries machines, four Cee-Jay Splitters and many other stone processing machines.
Average yearly sales of dimen- sional stone is 13,000 tons, while stone for landscaping, rip rap, etc., totals 4,000 tons per year. The company’s sales ratio is ap- proximately 50 percent Lyons Red, with the remaining 50 per- cent being their other colors. According to Brenda, Lyons Red is used a lot locally, whereas other areas, such as Kansas City, Lyons Red would look unusual, so sometimes Lyons Red doesn’t travel as far as they’d like it to.
“We are pretty much order tak- ers,” continued Bernard, “and we are well known in what we call the Front Range, which extends from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Pueblo, Colorado. I won’t say we own that market, but most of the big projects in this area are done by two or three of the ma- sonry contractors who ask us for quotes on those projects. So, yes, you could say we are just order takers, but the best sales tool that we have is to keep those masonry contractors happy by getting them what they need on time as the job is progressing. If we can do that, that’s going to keep us in their good graces. We also have a decent website, and we feel it is there to satisfy the people who are looking for stone for architectural projects. We also like when archi- tects and masons from other parts of the country look at our web- site, but we wind up doing more retail sales than we would like to because of it. We would much rather ship our stone out on a trac- tor trailer than a trailer behind a pickup truck. It’s about an equal amount of effort to handle each of those different customers.”
Brenda: “Sometimes people call us because they can’t get what they are looking for from one of our distributors. So, Yeah! We get suckered into selling retail some- times, and we kick each other when we do.”
Bernard: “If someone is inter- ested in our stone, we don’t want to kill that interest. The more people interested, all the better. We have no sales people, but someday we do want to have our nephew, Joshua Buster, out sell- ing to architects and to big proj- ects. Joshua has been part of this company for fifteen years, and he is a great asset.”
According to Bernard, the com- pany currently employs 54 person- nel, with 34 being seasonal labor
Slippery rock Gazette
that stays as late as November 16, every year. Keeping production steady is high on the priority list, but keeping the good folks that produce every day is at the top of the list, he explained. “We are re- quired by the Mining Safety and Health Association (MSHA) to do eight hours per year of mining refresher training and four hours of new employee mining training per year. Most of the accidents we have, and we do have them, are in the category of a smashed thumb from missing the wedge that they’re hammering into the rock that they’re trying to split. We wouldn’t be where we are today without our employees, and in all respects we constantly strive to create a safer workplace for them every day.”
A Prosperous Outlook with High Expectations
Bernard: “I predict that the per- centage of sales of Lyons Red will continue to grow, but the other stones we have will grow even faster. We haven’t found the bottom of our quarried areas yet, either. Out of our 173 permitted acres, we’ve only quarried about fifteen. We think that the forma- tion of Lyons Red could be 200 to 400 feet deep, but you don’t know how deep the good reserves go until you get there.”
Brenda: “Things have changed from the early days, and we are looking at the company continu- ing on past our active involvement in it. When Bernard and I came to Colorado and tried our hand at quarrying, our thought was that we would do it for a few years and sell it and retire, but it has gotten in our blood. We are working hard to develop more people to manage it and be able to keep growing and expanding the business, with no foreseeable end.”
Lyons Sandstone is a member of the Rocky Mountain Masonry Institute and the Natural Stone Institute (NSI).
For more information visit
www.lyonssandstone.com
new waterjets and a 65-foot single head CNC polisher that are sit- ting under tarps. “We bought this equipment, because we needed a more automated production line,” continued Brenda. “Finding labor is getting to be more and more of a challenge, and we wanted to find ways to do more with less man power. Additionally, from that standpoint, we decided to buy
other colors from other quarries to offer a more diverse inventory to our customers.”
Sales and Marketing
Lyons Sandstone currently stocks eight colors in a variety of cuts, with the most popular being their 4-inch bed depth Ashlar ve- neers. All can be shipped nation- wide as well as internationally.
Everyone says forgive- ness is a lovely idea, until they have some- thing to forgive.”
– C.S. Lewis