Fordham Marble: Drive For Perfection

   As it is, the owner of Fordham Marble Co. Inc., says the secret to success is in how he and his managers make certain every aspect of every job is done as well as it can possibly be done.
   It’s easy to think that Sardo is a perfectionist, especially when he says his personal goal – one he set for himself in the early 1970s – is to have the model marble shop. He says he isn’t there yet, but with the installation of the company’s second CMS/Brembana milling machine in August, he’s getting closer.
   Sardo, however, is anything but a technology nerd. He still really enjoys going out to sell and measure a job — the skills he developed when it appeared his father might close the doors of the decades-old company in the early 1970s.

BUMPY ROAD
   Fordham Marble’s been on the same Bronx street since before World War II. If founder Salvatore Sardo came back today, though, it’s doubtful he’d recognize the company he started in 1905.
   The family patriarch, who died when grandson Mario Sardo was a child, was a young Sicilian who came to the United States. “I don’t think the family did stone work (in Sicily),” Sardo says. “I think they were farmers.”
   Salvatore Sardo founded a company that prospered enough to send his sons – Mario’s father (also named Mario) and uncle – to law school.  There was only one problem with that dream: The senior Mario Sardo had no desire to practice law. He wanted to be an architect.
   “When he was in high school he used to walk over to the shop and work after school,” says his son. “He felt much more comfortable in the marble business.”
   Despite his legal education, Mario senior joined Fordham Marble in 1932 and made it his career. His son describes the elder Mario as scrupulously honest, but with a real preference for working in the shop.
   “It really limited the growth of the company,” Sardo says, “because he wasn’t out selling.”
   The younger Mario went to work for his father on a full-time basis in 1969, and dedicated himself to the business. “The only thing I am is a marble man,” he says.
   He also learned the business from the ground up, mainly because – at that point – the company was so small; he literally did everything from working in the shop, to driving a truck, to working as a helper on installations – and eventually graduating to doing installations himself.
   In 1972, a turning point came for both the young man and Fordham Marble. The person on whom the senior Mario Sardo relied to make his sales calls passed away.
   “At that point, my dad was going to close the shop down,” his son relates. “I told him that I’d go out and sell the jobs and measure them. Well, he said,  ‘Okay, give it a shot and see what you can do.’
   “The first year I did okay, and the next year I did a little bit better and the next year I did even better. Eventually it got to the point where I couldn’t do it all myself and I had to start hiring people to help me outside.”
   More sales led to growth in all aspects of the business. Today, Fordham Marble employs more than 40 people at the Bronx shop, with close to a third of them involved in installation. In 1977, the company moved to its current location, which includes 16,000 ft² of factory space and a 16,000-ft yard.
   That growth also pushed Sardo into primarily a management role. Still, he enjoys times when a request from an especially good client, or an unexpected absence by one of his employees, requires him to pick up his tools and go out on a call.
   “Even now, for me at least, selling means estimating the job, measuring the job, drawing the job, selecting the materials with the architect, supervising the production and then starting the men off on the job,” he says.
   In 1990, Fordham also opened a separate 5,000-ft² showroom with five employees in Stamford, Conn., under the direction of Sardo’s spouse Joyce. Although they were married for about a decade before her skills in the industry became apparent, her husband describes Joyce as an excellent marble person in her own right.
   “She’s just fantastic,” he says. “She knows stone inside and out, and has a photographic memory, which really helps. I don’t know what I would do without her.”
   Being the perfectionist that he is, Sardo says one of the biggest problems he continually faces is finding and keeping the right people to help the business grow. For years, the two Marios split the supervisory work, with the father – who passed away in 1989 – in charge of production.
   “Now, we have a gentleman named Lou Gliecher who runs production,” says Sardo. “He used to have his own shop but he thought it was wiser to join a bigger company. He’s a very critical part of our team here, as are Tom Maietto, the outside projects executive and Jim Dowd, the outside project manager. It’s very, very hard to find good people like them.”

VISION OF PERFECTION
   His concern about having first-rate people and getting first-rate work is also an important part of Sardo’s purchase of the first CMS/Brembana milling machine sold in the United States.
   “The older gentlemen I had working for us in the factory were all Italian, and they did everything by hand,” he explains. “They were also dying or retiring, and I needed something that would replace some of those skills. It (the milling machine) has done that in a lot of sectors – although I still have men who can do everything by hand, just because there are some things machine can’t do.”
   However, Sardo’s interest in the machines really dates back to a time before he knew they existed, really back to his goal of having the perfect marble shop.
   “I really don’t know why, but I have had a goal most of my working life to have a certain type of production facility that runs like a Swiss watch and overcome all of the problems that are inherent in this type of custom manufacturing business,” he says.
   Sardo adds that he knows that’s a lot to ask for, considering all the variables of the marble business. Not only is every piece of stone different; in his preferred customer base – custom homes – every job involves unique products. And, that doesn’t even take into account the time frames, many of them unrealistic, under which these jobs need to be done.
   However, just as he bought one of the first IBM PCs when it became available, he says early on he envisioned a computerized milling machine. Despite not being an engineer, he even took his idea to machine shops in the New York area, only to be told it couldn’t be done.
   “Then, I went to a show in Verona, Italy, in 1986,” Sardo says. “I saw the machine, and it was only like the second or third one they (CMS) had built. It also cost about eight times what my first house cost.
   “It was a major investment. But, I said, ‘I have to have this machine; this is what I want.’ I went out on a limb and bought it and I’ve never regretted it.”
   Considering the late 1980s were a bit tough economically, and stone hadn’t yet achieved the level of popularity it enjoys today in the residential market, Sardo’s purchase was quite a statement in itself. However, shortly after buying the machine, Fordham Marble took on a project involving a very complicated inlaid floor with a lot of patterning.
   “We could do a much better job because of the computerized milling machine,” he says. “The client was so impressed that I’ve done every job for him ever since.”
   Additionally, the contractor allowed Sardo to show other contractors the same job and that, in turn, generated more orders for Fordham.
   “They tend to give me the work that’s a lot more-difficult,” he says. “And, that’s led us into a market where we’re doing things like ornate edges and work that has to fit exactly right.”
   And, while Sardo’s willing to give the CNC machine a lot of the credit, he says it’s only part of the equation. For instance, since buying his first CMS/Brembana, Sardo has also added four computerized saws and automatic edge-polishing equipment.
   “Our quality comes from several things,” he says. “My measuring work is excellent, so things always fit. The men who work in the shop are very experienced, so they can do the final finishing and intricate detailing work that other companies find difficult to do. When you combine that with the super accuracy of the CNC machine, things are bound to come out well.”
   Certainly quality sells. Sardo says the company has done jobs up and down the East Coast and as far west as Illinois. And, while his real preference is for private residential jobs involving $500,000-$600,000 in stone, he admits to being willing to do any job that comes in the door.
   “My father said, ‘Every piece of the fly’s liver is substance to the starving man,’” he notes. “We do at least 10 kitchen-countertop jobs a week, plus vanity tops and fireplaces. We consider every job important.”
   Despite the recent downturn in the economy, Fordham Marble just keeps growing. It’s that volume of work that convinced Sardo to invest in his second CMS/Brembana this year, although he says he’s also impressed with the way the technology has improved since 1986.
   “We’re going to use the new machine to its maximum,” Sardo says. “It’s definitely going to be helping us with what we normally do and then it’s going to be doing other things.”

SATISFACTION GUARANTEED
   His faith in his machines notwithstanding, Sardo is distinctly aware of the human component in every aspect of his business – and he seems to relish it, even as he seeks to polish out a few of the imperfections.
   His second CNC machine may be up and running, but he remains concerned about his ability to get good employees for his shop. His preference would be to add a second shift, but says it’s impossible to get more employees with decent skill levels unless he hires those moonlighting from other companies. “And, they can only do that for a certain amount of time and then they can’t do that anymore,” he says.
   About a year ago, he advertised for people interested in an in-shop training program. The 300-plus responses convinced him he needed a more-defined and -elaborate program, and that will soon be in place.
   “We’re going to be training our own people from the ground up,” Sardo says. “I’ve come to the conclusion that’s the only way it’s going to work. You can’t find many kids who are interested in this work, and those who are interested need to be trained. Once they get some training, they can make a lot more money than most non-college-educated guys are going to make.”
   Of course, those who work for him must be dedicated to turning out consistently high-quality jobs. Along with his own desire for perfection, Sardo’s a firm believer that a satisfied customer will tell a few people, but a dissatisfied one will tell many.
   “I believe we’re in business to satisfy our customers and I’m never happy with the level of satisfaction we’re able to deliver,” he says. “Everybody who works for me has a constant sense of urgency to see that every aspect of the job is done as well as we can possibly do it. And, when things go wrong, there are no questions asked – we do it over.”
   That extends to the person who focuses on a particular spot or crack in a piece of stone once it’s installed, and even to the woman who insisted the piece she’d selected for her kitchen island was too pink once it was in place.
   “It doesn’t pay to fight,” Sardo says philosophically. “I’d gain nothing from it. The island might have been worth $4,000, but I would have been on the phone for hours with lawyers, and in the end we would have been the bad people.”
   And, while admitting that chorus line of singing-and-dancing customers would be a nice indicator that Fordham Marble has done its best, Sardo’s pretty satisfied to be working at a time that’s seeing such a boom in what he calls, “a magnificent product.”
   “When I came into the business, there were maybe a dozen fabricators in New York,” he says. “Everybody wanted glass and chrome, and stone was definitely out. Now, everybody wants natural products like stone; and, with the introduction of modern technology, we can make a better product in less time. It’s a wonderful time to be in the stone business.”
   As for his own quest for the marble shop he describes as running like a Swiss watch, Sardo is pretty confident that he has most of the components in place.
   “For this company, we’re trying – through the use of computers and project management and scheduling and just-in-time purchasing and everything else we can possible do – to get our projects delivered on time at the highest level of quality,” he says.
   Sardo even believes he’ll know when he’s reached his level of perfection.
   “I think I’ll be able to look at it and say, ‘Okay, I’ve done it; I’ve achieved what I came here to achieve,’” he says. “Then, I’m out of here.”
   Until that day comes, Sardo says he will make do with the thought that, perfect or not, a man who sent his young son out to sell marble in 1972 as an alternative to closing the family business would be proud.
   “My dad would be very happy with all this,” he says.

This article appeared in the October 2002 Stone Business. ©2002 Western Business Media.