Back in 2014, Roxanne Brown, co—owner of Alpha & Omega Stone in Belleville, NJ, was using other fabricators to do the fabrication work while she was brokering jobs to bring in business. Co—owner Rich Arrabito joined the company two years later and convinced Brown to get into stone fabrication. “I came in as a 50% owner in 2016,” said Arrabito. “Prior to that, Roxanne was selling material and brokering to other shops, but they were not giving her quality work. When they got busy they would push her off to the side. She was getting frustrated. I acquired this building years ago when it became available, so I said, ‘Why don’t we open a shop here?’ And she said, ‘I want to be partners in the shop.’ So instead of it being her doing sales and buying from me, we joined forces and she bought into the building and I bought into her business.”

They next went to The International Surfaces Event (TISE) in Las Vegas, NV, that year to purchase the latest machinery. “We bought state—of—the—art equipment, including the Saber [by Park Industries in St. Cloud, MN] which just came out that year,” said Arrabito. “Three months later, it was delivered. We had the whole shop fitted out by them with a recycling system and the power for it. We [also] bought a Laser Templator at the same time.”