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June 23, 2016Made in the USA: How Frank’s Marble & Granite has focused its machinery upgrades on American-made products
When Frank’s Marble & Granite needed a new stone-cutting saw, the company looked at machines from around the world.
“Almost every time, though, we kept coming back to the American-made machine,” says owner Carmine Pantano. “In the end, we felt good about supporting another American machine manufacturer by doing our part to help keep jobs in America.”
Pantano has a heart for supporting local businesses. He grew up watching his parents, Frank and Carmela Pantano, run the family business around the idea of providing beautiful stone in homes throughout Central Pennsylvania and even into parts of Maryland.
“My parents built this business little by little,” Pantano says. “The business steadily grew through the years, and it’s still a healthy market. I learned from them that supporting local businesses – like others supported us – can make all the difference in a company’s success. It feels good knowing we can contribute to that for others.”
Helping Americans succeed
Frank’s Marble & Granite, a family-owned, Red Lion-based business that has 10 employees, is primarily in the residential market, but you might have seen their work in restaurants and bars such as Wyndridge Farms in Dallastown, as well as work on a club suite at Orioles Park at Camden Yards.
Providing beautiful, natural stone to locals is the goal of the family business, but so is supporting local ventures.
Pantano is the president of the Buy Local Coalition, which supports small, family-owned businesses and encourages members to keep their dollars in the local market.
That drive to see their neighbors succeed has been a family tradition, a tradition Frank’s Marble & Granite is taking to a national level with a commitment to purchasing only American-made machines for their fabrication facility.
Frank’s Marble & Granite just purchased a state-of-the-art CNC (Computer Numerical Control) saw from Park Industries in St. Cloud, Minnesota, to go with the current CNC router made by Northwood in Louisville, Kentucky, that the company has had since 2009.
“I felt it was very well made and the pricing was also comparable,” Pantano says. “Another thing is the service. If I would need somebody to service it, they have plenty of service technicians available to send here. Everybody else had minimal technicians to service the whole United States. In the end, we just felt better about it.”
Investing in the US
“In 2001, we were the first ones to bring CNC technology for the granite countertop market into the Susquehanna Valley,” Pantano says. “We were the only ones within 200 miles to have one big enough to make kitchen countertops.”
These efficient CNC systems are programmed through computers and can cut granite with speed and precision. Frank’s Marble & Granite is currently running five state-of-the-art machines – all of which are American made.
The new CNC saw is a five-axis model. The plan is for the new machine to work in tandem alongside the existing CNC router to help speed up the current process.
“It allows us to cut a lot faster and at any angle,” Pantano says. “It has a few other features, as well. Right now, the trend for kitchen islands is to look like they are 4 inches thick. This machine will allow us to make that happen.”
Pantano estimated the cost for the new saw at about $200,000 – and he’s proud to say that investment stayed in the USA.