Heather Quintal
Title: Chief Financial Officer, Plymouth Quarries
Age: 28
Industry Experience: 8 years
Heather Quintal is the fifth generation in her family to work with stone. Her great-great grandfather founded Bates Brothers, a Weymouth stone provider, in the 1930s. Her grandfather bought JF Price Co. in 1950, which dealt with trucking, aggregate stone and earth products like mulches, loam and soils. JF Price bought Plymouth Quarries in 2016 which, in partnership with Bates Brothers, now offer stones, veneer, chimney, granite, concrete products and more to clients from Boston to the Cape.
Plymouth Quarries has provided the same stone to higher education institutions like Yale and Boston College for decades. Quintal says what’s unique about Plymouth Quarries is that it’s a family-run business; the history of their stone is visible in schools and churches in almost every town in New England.
Q: How does the family-run tradition affect the business?
A: There are pros and cons in each generation, which is neat to watch, you can really see the generational divide. It’s fun to work with your grandfather, uncles and cousins; you get that typical family dynamic. It can get too close for comfort sometimes, like do I talk about stone or the weather at Thanksgiving?
There’s big benefits to have three generations involved in the business right now. You’ve got the historic knowledge from my grandfather who’s done this for over 60 to 70 years and that experience. And you get the younger generation’s different experience on what is becoming more popular, what we need to focus more on.
Our business is rapidly growing, but we still like to make sure our employees know it’s a family business, and as we grow we are learning how to keep the family feel while still developing and evolving at the same time.
Q: Where did you work before becoming CFO at Plymouth Quarries?
A: Historically, I started working at JF Price and Bates Brothers. I just worked with stone to supply to universities and I did a lot of the earth products like mulch, loans and aggregate stone. I did work at one of the big four accountant firms briefly, and that was when the family business door opened and I decided to change and pursue that.
With the family business, it is our life and what we grew up with. It’s been really fun coming into this knowing the stone and learning more about the masonry side of it from new additions [to the company] Dean Marsico and Derek Stearns, who were on the DIY Network shows “Rock Solid” and “Indoors Out” and have been working with stone their whole lives. Stonemasonry is almost becoming a lost art, and with Dean and Derek we can bring that back and make sure everyone has a knowledge base for it.
Q: What’s the most common misconception about quarries and stonemasonry?
A: I do sometimes get the “I thought quarries were swimming holes!” But the most common misconception I think is that you don’t realize, stone is something you deal with every single day; you don’t know you need it. It does come from the earth and we deal with it at Plymouth Quarries on a daily basis, but people don’t recognize the stone built into the side of the highway for example.
That’s an interesting piece to me, where it all comes from. You can see hiking down the Cape if you look to the side and see what’s under the earth. And from that you can get different colors and textures in the stone from different places.
Another common misconception is that every quarry yields a different shade; stone isn’t dyed. Stone that we offer locally is a different shade than stone we offer from Italy.
Q: How has the business grown with recent commercial and redevelopment upticks in the city and state?
A: Our industry is growing, and with that we’re working with more architects and interior designers for projects like lobby floors. We’ve taken advantage of that, but there’s still room for growth there. Locally we’ve gotten a good opportunity for growth with Union Point, another big open area that was formerly an airbase. Now they’re becoming their own little town, making as community where you can walk to everything, live, work and play. There’ll be a brewery to visit, a music venue and more. We’ve worked with them on this outdoor project a lot, from stonework to fake turf.
Q: What are the most recent projects you’ve worked on, and what’s next for Plymouth Quarries?
A: Boston College is the biggest project right now, we are involved in the redesigning of one of the buildings. We just did a library in Connecticut, and completed the Dr. Seuss Museum in West Massachusetts and the Concord Museum. Those projects were done with mostly Weymouth granite.
Quintal’s Top 5 Favorite Things to Do in New England:
- Leaf peeping
- Ski
- Hike
- Visit the beach
- Pick apples
