American Dream Achieved
IBA, as a fifty-one-year old business brokerage firm serving the entrepreneurial community of the Pacific Northwest, has been uniquely positioned since before the American Bicentennial celebration of 1976 to witness and hear the stories of thousands of people who have lived the American dream through entrepreneurship creating beloved businesses by employees, customers, and communities while finding personal fulfillment and financial prosperity through execution of their ideas, hard work, perseverance, and ability. In an effort to share these stories heard throughout the years by our team of business brokers, who are commonly regarded as the “best listeners” in the M&A industry, IBA has retained highly regarded writer, Nesha Ruther, to tell their stories. It is our goal to share one story a month. It is our hope that you will find the stories as inspirational and motivational as they are to us and the buyers who bought the businesses in IBA facilitated transactions in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.
The Story of Edward, German, and Valter Federau of The Stone Brothers
By Nesha Ruther
The story of The Stone Brothers began in Estonia. The three bothers: Edward, German, and Valter Federau, along with their two sisters, were born to a German father and Slavic mother. Edward and German—who now lives in Europe and was not present for our interview—were born slightly over a year apart, and Valter was born three years later. “Our childhood in Estonia was great,” Edward says. “The plan was to continue living in Estonia, but our mother’s parents immigrated to the United States in January 1991.”
The brothers’ maternal grandparents, along with two of their uncles and their families, were the first members of the extended family to immigrate to the United States. They initially settled in Massachusetts before relocating together to the Seattle area, where they established new lives in the Pacific Northwest.
As the family became more familiar with life in the region, the brothers’ parents began to see new possibilities for their future. “Our relatives would tell us about the opportunities in the Seattle area and share photos and videos of the incredible scenery—Mount Rainier, the forests, and everything the Pacific Northwest had to offer,” Edward recalls. “That’s when my parents started asking themselves, ‘What if we moved, too?’”
Encouraged by the support of family already living in Washington and attracted by the opportunities and quality of life the region offered, the family immigrated to the United States in August 2000. At the time, Edward was 18, German was 17, and Valter was 14.
“For me, it was a very difficult transition,” Edward candidly recalls “I wasn’t excited about moving to the U.S. At that point, I had just bought my first car, gotten my first cell phone, and started building close friendships back home. Then, almost overnight, I had to leave everything behind and start over.” For an 18-year-old who had an already established sense of independence and was entering adulthood in his home country, adapting to a completely new environment was a significant challenge. Valter’s experience, however, was quite different. He entered the U.S. as a Freshman in high school, which made the transition more natural. “I can’t say it wasn’t challenging at times,” he says. “But I enjoyed the experience much more than Edward did.
Edward was determined to go back to Estonia as soon as he got his green card, which would allow him to travel back and forth, but the American public school system put a dent in his plans. “I had just graduated high school in Estonia, but it was recommended I do another two years of American high school so I could better pick up English.” By the time he’d finished his additional two years, America had grown on him; he decided to go to college in the U.S. and begin looking for work.
While the family never went without the necessities, the brothers understood from a young age that if they wanted anything fun or frivolous, they would have to come up with the money themselves. “There was no such thing as asking your parents for money,” Edward says. “We started working at a young age, looking for any opportunities that were out there. That’s what’s great about the United States, the market is big and as long as you stick to it, there are opportunities in anything you want to do.”
While in college, Edward and German joined a company called Priceless Granite that did local countertop fabrication and installation. Edward joined the installation crew while German did fabrication. For the uninitiated, countertops prior to installation are raw materials imported from overseas. Fabrica-tors receive slabs of stone and cut them into the shape of the countertop, making cutouts for the sink and faucet, and polish the edges before the installation crew bring it to the clients’ home.
“As we gained experience, we became curious about the business side of the industry,” Edward says. “We wanted to understand what the company charged its customers, what the invoices looked like, the price per square foot—everything that went into running the business. At the same time, we were exploring the possibility of starting a company of our own.”
Working at Priceless Granite gave Edward and German the opportunity to learn while also saving money whenever they could. “We were constantly doing the math in our heads, analyzing costs, margins, and whether we could successfully build a business ourselves. After about two years, we had an opportunity to lease a 500 square foot shop and purchase a basic bridge saw to cut stone, polishing equipment and small forklift,” Edward recalls. The brothers decided it was time to strike out on their own.
In the beginning, there was very little division of labor between the brothers. “I would find new cli-ents, drive my pickup truck to pick up the slabs, deliver them to our shop, and then German and I would fabricate and install everything ourselves,” Edward says. “Stone is incredibly heavy—around 25 pounds per square foot—so every job was physically demanding. We were working long days and doing whatever it took to keep the business moving.”
As more projects came in, the brothers realized they had reached the limits of what two people could accomplish on their own. Their first major milestone was hiring their first employee, which allowed them to begin dividing responsibilities more efficiently.
“From that point on, I focused on growing the business,” Edward says. “I spent my time searching for new clients, meeting builders, measuring projects, and transporting slabs to the shop so fabrication could begin. German took the lead in the fabrication shop, making sure every countertop was cut and polished to our standards. When it came time for installation, all three of us worked together in the field.”
This new structure allowed the company to take on more work without sacrificing quality. “Hiring that first employee was a turning point,” Edward says. “It freed each of us to focus on what we did best while still working together to complete every project.”
The first substantial payment the company received made all the hard work worthwhile. “We used to make $10 an hour working for someone else, and suddenly we were depositing a $5,000 check for doing the same type of work,” Edward says. “Of course, we had to pay for materials, rent, and all the other expenses, but for the first time we could see the opportunity. We realized that if we kept working hard and reinvesting in the business, we could build something much bigger.”
At the time, most of the brothers’ work came from home builders. “We became curious whether retail projects would be more profitable, but we had no one dedicated to developing that side of the business. It became the perfect opportunity for our third brother, Valter, to join the company,” Edward says.
While Valter initially came on as an employee, it quickly became clear that he would play a much larger role. Before long, he had become a partner in the business.
“I had spent a few years working for a construction company while I was in college. That gave me a solid understanding of the industry,” Valter says. “After that, I spent two years with a marketing company that specialized in automotive dealerships, where I learned how online advertising and digital marketing worked. As Edward and I talked more about the business, he kept saying, ‘We don’t really have anyone focused on sales and marketing. It would make sense to bring you on so you can concentrate on connecting with homeowners and growing that side of the company.’”
Valter’s arrival marked an important turning point. While Edward continued to oversee relationships with builders and operations in the field, and German focused on fabrication and production, Valter dedicated himself to building the company’s retail presence, marketing the brand, and developing relationships with homeowners. His efforts helped diversify the business beyond new construction and opened the door to a much broader customer base.
As the business grew, the brothers were able to become more focused on their areas of expertise: Valter in sales and marketing, German in production, and Edward in company’s vision and finance. “It became a whole other game at that point,” Edward says of the company’s trajectory.
At that point, the brothers had already outgrown their original space and moved into a 3,000-square-foot shop. When the real estate market crashed in 2008, business slowed considerably, forcing them to find ways to reduce their overhead. They eventually relocated to a property in Bothell that included both a house and a shop. The arrangement significantly lowered their operating costs, which proved invaluable as they navigated one of the most challenging economic periods in the construction industry.
“We were still a small business at the time, but we definitely felt the effects of the financial crisis,” Edward says. “The slowdown impacted everyone in the construction industry. Fortunately, our lower overhead helped us weather the downturn. As the market began to recover, we started looking for an industrial-zoned property that would give us room to grow and would support the next stage of the business.”
In 2016, the brothers relocated the company to an 8,000-square-foot facility in Woodinville. By then, all three brothers had started families, and their priorities had evolved alongside the business. What had once been a way to make a living had become something much more significant: a company capable of providing long-term stability and creating opportunities for their growing families. “We realized we needed to build a business that could support not only us, but also our employees and their families for years to come,” Edward says.
The move to Woodinville marked another turning point. Rather than simply operating a successful fabrication shop, the brothers began investing in systems, equipment, and people with the goal of building a scalable, sustainable company that would continue to grow well into the future.
Another big change that came in 2016 was when the brothers travelled to Las Vegas to attend the industry’s biggest event, Stone Expo, for the first time. “We went there just to look, and we ended up purchasing our first Five Axis CNC to cut stone. Prior to that we’d had a semi-automatic saw, where-as this was a fully automatic saw,” Edward says. The CNC took over much of the manual labor that German had done previously, cutting the stone in accordance with the specific requirements of the kitchen.
“German and I had spent a long day at the convention in Vegas, and we’re sitting there running the numbers, measuring the opportunity, and we saw that if we bought this saw, we could take on even more projects with less headache. We saw this was the technology we needed to move forward, so we placed that order. Then, of course, as soon as we got it into the Woodinville facility, we realized the facility was too small,” Edward laughs.
Having just signed the lease on a new space, the brothers tried to optimize as much as they could given the physical limitations. “We did everything we could to maximize the space we had,” Edward says. “We operated two full-time installation crews, ran our CNC machine in two shifts, and carefully scheduled production to keep up with demand.”
After nearly five years, however, it was clear they had reached the limits of what they could accomplish there. “We had grown to approximately 15 employees and although the space had served us well, we needed a larger facility to support our continued growth,” Edward says.
“Finally, we signed a lease on a brand new, 25,000 square-foot facility…in January of 2020,” Edward says with a grim laugh. “We signed a lease for 11 years, and the building was massive. There were no partition walls, so it looked like a football field.”
The brothers had invested heavily in the new facility. “We needed to have all these filtration systems for cutting the stone because of silica dust, so we could have a dust-free shop and be compliant with OSHA,” Edward says. The brothers purchased nearly all new equipment valued at over $1 million, including a water filtration system, CNC routers, a water jet saw, overhead cranes, and other specialized machinery needed to increase production capacity and improve efficiency. “Some of these had financing terms for five to seven years and were sitting at the warehouse covered in plastic due to the Pandemic. We’ll remember that for the rest of our lives.”
In April, the governor of Washington issued the order to close all non-essential businesses. The brothers faced a difficult decision: they could try to back out of the lease, save what they could, and return to their old shop, or wait out the Pandemic and hope for the best. They could step back and accept the uncertainty or commit fully and find a way to move forward through the challenges. “We had a brothers’ meeting and decided that we only live once—we had to take the shot,” Edward says. “We knew there were significant risks, but if we continued to fight and make the right decisions, there was a chance we could come through it stronger. Giving up was not an option.”
This ended up being the best choice the brothers could have possibly made.
The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most challenging periods the brothers had experienced as a company. Like many businesses, they faced uncertainty and did not know what the future would look like. However, as more people began working from home, they started spending more time in their houses and became more aware of projects they had been putting off for years, especially kitchen and bathroom upgrades.
“COVID started out as a very challenging time for us, but it eventually created new opportunities,” Edward says. “People were investing in their homes because they were spending so much more time there. That helped drive demand for remodeling projects and allowed us to continue moving forward with our plans.”
One major point of pride for the brothers is that, throughout the course of the Pandemic, they did not lose a single employee. “We were able to keep everyone on payroll, support our team through the un-certainty, and continue growing the business. As demand increased, we eventually increased our production capacity. The challenge then became finding ways to scale quickly enough to keep up with the number of projects coming in,” Edward says.
Scaling a company while keeping up with the current workload is a significant challenge for any business. “In our industry, you can’t just stop production while you build a new shop,” Edward says. “We had to continue serving our customers while building the next phase of the business. We worked day and night—literally—digging trenches at the new facility, building the showroom, and moving equipment. We finished the installation on a Friday, and on Monday we opened the new facility.”
The transition was a testament to the team’s dedication and the brothers’ commitment to keeping the momentum they had built. Rather than slowing down during a period of rapid growth, they invested the time, energy, and resources needed to create a foundation for the company’s next stage.
“We were constantly scaling because once you figure out how to fine-tune a process, you begin out-growing it,” Valter adds. “We were constantly trying to figure out the best and smoothest way to process everything as we moved from a 3,000 square-foot shop where I was the only sales guy to a 8,000 square foot one where we have three salespeople to a 25,000 square-foot facility with an entire showroom. As we grew, we were constantly figuring out where were our bottlenecks? What should we be focusing on?”
A company that is committed to constant growth cannot commit to a single system or process to carry them all the way, they require constant adaptation as the needs of the company change. “Systems don’t last that long,” Edward says. “You have to be constantly optimizing and updating your systems, the technology, and processes.”
By the time the brothers sold the business in 2026, it looked quite different than how it began. They had a staff of over forty people, and with the exception of highly complicated custom jobs, much of the fabrication work was entirely automated. Still, the heart of the company was the same: three brothers who wanted to work together.
For many, the idea of running a business with siblings would be daunting, but The Stone Brothers never considered otherwise. When asked about balancing family and work, Edward just smiles. “We get asked that question a lot, and I would give a lot of the credit to our parents. It could also be an Eastern European thing. First of all, your family are the people you trust the most, but also, from the very beginning, we built transparent systems.”
Along with a commitment to transparency, the brothers were in total agreement about the mission and purpose of the business. “It was not about chasing the money, but building something that can last,” Edward says. “The building of the business was the actual motivation.”
“Did we have differences regarding the business and how to do this or that? Yes, of course,” Valter adds. “However, it always stayed within the business. We all had a similar vision of what we wanted, and everyone focused on what they could do in the department they were responsible for. We had disagreements, obviously, but it was always on a professional level.”
The Stone Brothers’ business model rested on two foundational principals. The first was the mutual trust and respect they have for one another. “My best buddies are my brothers,” Edward says. “As you get older, the circle gets smaller because a lot of friends naturally fall off. Especially when you have success, other people can’t always handle that well. At the end of the day, you’ve got a small circle. It’s your family, it’s your brothers. You stay focused on that and stay professional and save the drama for someone else.”
The second was growth of the business itself. “The three of us have one boss, and it’s the company. Whatever we do, it has to be for the benefit of the company, that’s the foundation,” Valter says.
That commitment to always doing what is best for the company, also can mean knowing when it is time to let go. After nearly twenty years of running the business, and a decade of aggressively scaling, the brothers reached a point where they felt they had taken the company as far as it could go.
Edward reached out to Gregory Kovsky at IBA to discuss finding a buyer for the business. “In our first conversation, we were so excited talking about the business and sharing our vision that I think Gregory realized we weren’t quite ready to sell yet,” Edward says. “He encouraged us to continue building the company, strengthen our financials, and come back when we were truly prepared.”
“A year later, we approached him again, but Gregory told us we still needed more time. He recommended that we spend another year improving the business and positioning it for a successful transition,” Edward says.
It was also around this time that German decided he wanted to move his family back to Europe, where he now owns a small business. “It was great when it was three brothers running a business, everyone is focused on different departments: my department is financial, Valter’s mainly the sales, and German’s the production, but when the production guy moves to Europe, the business starts to take up so much of your personal time that you don’t have time for anything else,” Edward explains. “Life is short, and I don’t want to spend all my life doing one thing.”
Valter felt similarly, he had spent the last 15 years focusing on growing sales and online presence. Selling the business could provide previously unexplored opportunities. “Even though I enjoyed what I did till the end, change is good sometimes,” he says. “[The sale] really opened up new opportunities and new energy.”
When German made the decision to relocate, it was clear the brothers were finally ready to enter a new chapter of their careers. After three years of allowing the brothers to prepare for the sale, both financially and emotionally, the sale went through smoothly in February of 2026. The brothers worked with Gregory Kovsky and Sergei Merkushev at IBA. “Sergei showed a strong sense of responsibility in ensuring that we were protected throughout the transition and that our interests remain safeguarded,” Edward says.
“We were really happy with where we were at [when we sold],” he adds. “We realized what we built, and the thing we built was our reputation.
As of now, the brothers’ next journey is real estate development.
For the three brothers, beginning in their childhood in Estonia, to their career in the United States, the American Dream is alive and well. “The American Dream is true,” Edward says. “The opportunities are out there. We’re immigrants, and this country gave us more than we could have asked for.”
“To me, the American dream is freedom of opportunity to achieve the goals that you have,” Valter says. “Not all countries give you the opportunity to do that. For me, I don’t know if I’ve achieved my personal dream yet, which would be total financial freedom, but I’m on the road there.”
“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Edward says. “By working hard, learning new skills, and staying persistent, you put yourself in a position to recognize and seize opportunities when they come. Success doesn’t happen overnight—it comes from being prepared when the right opportunity presents itself.”
No matter what the future holds for the Stone Brothers, they will be ready for the opportunities that arise and will greet them with gratitude. “We will always be grateful for the incredible team that stood beside us throughout the years. Their dedication, hard work, and commitment played a vital role in our company’s success,” Edward says.
Nesha Ruther
Nesha Ruther is a writer and editor from Takoma Park, Maryland. She received her BA in English Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin Madison, where she received a full tuition scholarship through the First Wave program based on academic and creative merits. She was a 2016 Young Arts winner in spoken word, a 2016 winner of the DC Commission of the Arts Larry Neal Writing Award, a 2017 winner of the Mochila Review Writing Award, which was judged by Nikki Giovanni, a 2020 winner of the University of Wisconsin’s Eudora Welty Fiction Thesis Award, and a 2022 Tin House Winter Workshop Participant. She has been commissioned to write and perform for the National Education Association, and has had work published in NarrativeNortheast, Angles Literary Magazine, Beltway Quarterly and more. She recently completed a tenure as the Lead Writer at Bond & Grace, and a co-host for the podcast Lit Talk (https://www.bondandgrace.com/the-lit-talk-podcast). Currently, Ms. Ruther is teaching classes and working on her Master’s Degree at the University of Kentucky.