2024 Business Women Awards
ACHIEVEMENT HONOREE: Angela Conte
Structural Stone LLC co-owner
EXPLORE MANY East Coast cities, and chances are you’ll see the work of Angela Conte’s North Kingstown company, Structural Stone LLC.
In Providence, it’s the polished, star-filled granite sidewalk in front of the Providence Performing Arts Center and the stonework that’s part of the Interstate 195 Washington Bridge. In Cambridge, Mass., there’s Harvard Law School’s sleek interior stone staircase and in Boston, the hardscapes and benches of City Hall Plaza. In New York, there are the stone approaches to the Brooklyn Bridge and site work such as pavers around the 16-story attraction called The Vessel at Hudson Yards.
Conte and her husband, Donald, a civil engineer, bought Structural Stone in 2009. The company offers stone selection, estimating, drafting, fabrication and delivery, and it specializes in cut-to-size materials. Projects, which feature regional granite, range from commercial and cultural locations to bridges and monuments.
There are many high-quality quarries in the U.S., Conte says.
“I get really bothered when foreign stones end up on projects here, especially American monuments, and it happens all the time,” she said.
Conte worked for her father as a kid, accompanying him when he was out looking at stone and architecture, but she didn’t consider it as a career, at least not at first.
She went to Boston University, earning a degree in business administration and finance. After graduation, she had an internship with a Boston investor.
“That changed my mind. I realized I didn’t want to do finance,” she said.
Instinctively, she knew she wanted to become part of the family business, but on a professional level. Initially she worked for her father in sales, going to trade shows and visiting architects.
Years later, in 2009, Conte and her husband struck out on their own, buying an existing company that’s now Structural Stone, a sprawling 80,000-square-foot fabrication plant in the Quonset Business Park. Conte focuses on management and marketing, with a lot of juggling, she says with a laugh.
“Is it a male-dominated field? Yes, it is the construction business. However, there are incredibly intelligent women in the stone business, and I have had the good fortune of knowing several,” she said. “There were many hands and minds contributing, including employees and family, and we need to acknowledge them. None of us do it alone.”
