Jesús Bernardos Bartolomé

Two decisive circumstances converge in an important moment of my life, in the 70´s: the need to enhance my professional activity, and the desire to relate it to my hometown. Probably marked from childhood by the entrepreneurial spirit inherited from my maternal grandfather, I always kept latent the desire to work in the business world. To create wealth, to create jobs, development and progress, were the values that always pushed me ahead, with little knowledge or economic resourcesto the entrepreneurial activity.

Slate, the natural resource pleinful in Bernardos, and its exploitation, were the paid field to make this desire happen.

Beginnings were not easy. I was starting from scratch. The first activity in the quarry was to extract manually, irregular flagstones to be sold, what implied long working days visiting nurseries, building material warehouses and above all, drive through Madrid and outskirts in my small car spotting the horizon searching for cranes ,evidence of the existence of works. Later on , the first excavator the first truck… Machinery that have endured thousand battles,gave us every day the adventures of breakdowns. But youth, illusion and perseverance were enough encouragement to overcome all these difficulties.

Traditionally, slate was the material used to roof buildings, and step by step we had to conceive and create new products with other applications in the construction field. To introduce them in the market, to present them to architects, promoters and companies was a long task, involving a great deal of perseverance. To make slate a material capable in its own right ofbeing present in major and innovative projects, not only as roofing material, was the next step.

The activity of extraction and elaboration was completed with the slate facility, which grew together with a family team, that supported, gave ideas and illusion to this activity started by myself. In this new stage that provided global solutions, it helped us to achieve that, in working units projected initially in other materials, these were substituted by natural stone.

Today, the holding Naturpiedra Jbernardos, which is still a family business, relies in an important team of qualified professionals, that has situated the slates, phyllites and quarzites of Bernardos, in wide international markets, contributing to develop and consolidate the working activity of this small location, were I was born, and of which I feel so proud, following the trace of my ancestors that over centuries, transmitted their knowledge from one generation to another in this tough and down to earth job.

The book you have in your hands is the outcome of a shared illusion, that pushed forward by my son David, has aroused the interest of two prestigious professionals: professor and historian José Ubaldo Bernardos, and the expert in natural stone and engineer Fernando López Mesones, who with love, accuracy and with a serious research, have given birth and solidity to this publication. My most sincere gratitude and acknowledgement.

Jesús Bernardos Bartolomé