Unique Marble and Granite Corp., Zion, Ill.

March 4, 2005

   In 2004, his company – Unique Marble and Granite Corp. – ended the year with 40 employees and a new 28,000 ft² facility … and now that Hahn has found sufficient space for his ever-growing operation, he has a few new directions he’d like to take his creation.
   One is expanding his service area, which currently covers the western shore of Lake Michigan from Chicago north to Milwaukee. Another is increasing the amount of stone he’s importing directly from Brazil, Italy and, more recently, China.
   Hahn may have one eye fixed firmly on the future, but he says a lot of his success is due to the values he developed as a young man, including a commitment to hard work, and providing a quality product and first-rate service.

SKILL-DRIVEN
   That kind of dedicated showed early, when he decided in 1987 to take matters into his own hands and opened a small fabrication business in nearby Barrington, Ill. Although he always believed he would be a success, Hahn’s biggest concern at first was finding jobs; armed with a couple thousand dollars and his own skills, he began by doing subcontract labor until he could start buying equipment.
   A contract to do 125 fireplaces was his first big job, and it enabled him to begin hiring other people.
   “It came about a year-and-a-half into the business, and it was a really lucrative job for me,” he says. “It also allowed me to springboard into some machinery.”
   Along with adding equipment, it quickly became apparent the now-growing company would need more space than the 1,000 ft² warehouse where Unique began. The business relocated to Gurnee, Ill., first in a 6,000 ft² shop, and then, in 1998, to a 10,000 ft² space just next door.
   The company’s growth has been such that Hahn says he began looking for a new facility two years before Unique moved into its current home in a small industrial area in Zion, Ill., only minutes from its Gurnee location.
   “I wanted to stay in Lake County, near the Wisconsin border,” he says. “Unfortunately, we had a couple land deals that went bad. We had blueprints to build our own facility last year, and that fell through. At that point it was back to the drawing board to find either an existing building or some land where we could build a new plant.”
   However, Hahn says the new location, on 2.5 acres, is just about ideal. The existing building contains a 13,000 ft² shop, 10,000 ft² of covered warehouse space, and a 5,000 ft² office/showroom. And, the parcel is large enough that when the need arises, the company can build up to 25,000 ft² of additional space.
   “We’re definitely here to stay,” Hahn says confidently. “We have a lot of room to expand, and that was one of the prerequisites during our search. We couldn’t live with something where we were limited as to the building space available to us. The new facility lays out very nicely as far as material flow and storage.”

STRONG ALLIANCES
   Certainly a big reason for Unique’s need for so much space is that the company enjoys taking on large jobs. That order for 125 fireplaces was only the first of many large-volume projects.
   “The million-dollar homes are nice, they’re custom and you tend to get a little more money for the work,” Hahn says. “But, we seem to do well with the subdivision work we do. It flows nicely through the plant.”
   However, getting into a position to do such work didn’t come overnight. Hahn says it’s a simple fact of life that the large homebuilders aren’t necessarily interested in talking with smaller companies, and it’s taken time to build the alliances that bring such work to Unique these days.
   It’s the company’s reputation that Hahn says is often what closes the deal.
   “Homebuilders are always on tight schedules and they’re always behind,” he says. “The granite people always come at the end of the building when the house is almost finished, and a lot of times the general contractor will ask the final tradespeople to step up and help get things back on schedule.”
   Not only are his crews able to help do that, Hahn says, but the builders appreciate that closings get back on schedule and they don’t lose money as a result.
   Despite larger projects being his preferred emphasis, Unique always maintained the market for individual homeowners, and the company’s new showroom is a testament to the strength of that part of its market.
   “I have referral lists that go back to when I was starting in the late 1980s,” Hahn says. “I still have people who will come in and throw up a name from the past that goes back 10-15 years. We take good care of the retail clients who come in and we have quite a following of them.”
   Melissa Smith, the company’s general manager, had much to do with the design and function of the new showroom. She says the expanded space is designed to allow individuals who are building or remodeling their homes to get a good idea of all the company offers.
   Hahn calls the showroom, “warm and inviting,” although he says it probably won’t be totally finished until the company has an open house early this spring.
   “We have different kitchen displays, granite colors, engineered stone and limestone,” he says. “We also have some light boxes with transparencies that show what we do. We want the customers to get a good idea of who we are and what we’re about.”
   The company also offers plumbing fixtures in its showroom, and Hahn says that’s been a good addition to the business.
   “We had a realization about five or six years ago that everybody was going to need a kitchen sink when we put their granite in,” he says. “Now, when residential customers come in, we provide them with plumbing accessories. We’re supplying customers with a full package of things, and it’s a nice supplement to the granite.”
   Still another item that has a big role in the showroom is cleaning and maintenance supplies, and both Hahn and Smith say that educating customers on the proper care of their new stone – and offering the service of sealing it every year or two years – is just good business sense.
   “We’re very careful to educate people,” says Smith. “We leave informational packets and our phone number with every job. We want them to understand the kinds of products they should use to care for their stone and what products to avoid.”

POISED FOR GROWTH
   With a good-sized shop, skilled employees and a core of union installation crews to make jobs happen, Hahn is poised for more growth and confident it will happen.
   One area that’s certainly of interest to Unique’s president is importing stone. He says it’s something the company has dabbled in for years, but until now there hasn’t been room to do all he’d like.
   “In the past we’d have a few containers coming in of specialty items that we thought would move well – and they did – but we really didn’t have the room for them,” he says. “I have excellent alliances in Brazil, as well as in Italy, to provide me with first-choice materials. With our larger facility it’s enabling us to spread our wings a bit and start flying.”
   As he has for years, Hahn is continuing to work with the ever-growing market for natural-quartz tops. He estimates it’s grown to be as much as 20 percent of his business.
   “It’s gaining in popularity; people like it,” he says. “We certainly don’t mind fabricating it. It goes through the machine in the same way the granite does, but its colors tend to be more-consistent.”
   Hahn also appreciates that it generates more even wear on his equipment. The president of Unique isn’t afraid of technology, and the company purchased its first CNC machine – a Breton – in 1998. Now, he says the only question about adding a second machine is when it will happen.
   “I really consider the Breton to be the Rolls-Royce of CNC finishing machines,” he says. “They’re not the cheapest – in fact, they’re probably the most-expensive – but I think they’re the best. Ours has two tables, and we’re definitely planning to add another CNC at some point.”
   Finding ways to further streamline what’s being done in the shop is very important to Hahn, especially as he looks at yet one more possible direction for expansion: new markets.
   Hahn says while he’s still at the speculation phase as far as his thinking, he believes that by importing more stone, his price points will improve, allowing him to take his products outside his current Chicago-to-Milwaukee market. Areas that have piqued his interest include Iowa and central Indiana.
   And, he says, he’s not ruling out a satellite facility in a carefully chosen market sometime within the next three to five years.
   Regardless of where Unique goes from here, Hahn is confident that if he works hard, he’ll be a success. He’s a firm believer that hard work is rewarded. Of course, he started with a pretty solid foundation.
   “We grew at the beginning because I knew what I was doing as far as fabrication and installation,” he says. “People gained confidence in me and my ability to do the job and get it done on time and on budget. Over the last dozen years, a lot of my success is due to the people who’ve joined me. My knowledge, coupled with people who really know the business and really care has taken us to where we are now.”
   And, he adds, he’s never lost his own passion for what he’s doing, even though he’s come a long way from those days in Barrington.
   “I like this business – a lot,” he concludes. “It’s ever-changing. The materials are changing, and no two jobs are ever the same. It’s what I really like about this business.”