Who We Are
John Williams
President
“This is a fantastic time to be working with stone—a renaissance! A global marketplace of fabulous materials and craftsmanship is converging with the dawning realization that stone is affordable and the most sustainable material selection on the planet.”
John Williams has 37 years of continuous and successful experience in construction program and project management, sales engineering, and operations management.
His oversight was integral to the Portland Chinese Garden winning a national award in 2001 from the Association of General Contractors—the Aon Build America award for construction management.
At YMSW he is responsible for sales proposals and negotiations, sales engineering and coordination, constructability management, technical support, financial planning and product development.
“We consider every project a new enterprise—with its own scope of work and cast of characters. We do what it takes to find products that fit the project aesthetics, budget and timeline.”
Nicole Gelpi
Vice President and Creative Director for YMSW
“Stone is an innately beautiful, natural material—it’s very inspirational. What I love most is helping designers look at stone in a different way.”
With a background in fine arts, Nicole Gelpi spent 15 years as an artistic director and interior designer before joining YMSW. Working on interior and set design from conception through completion, she was involved up to her elbows in design, construction management, and client advocacy.
Nicole brings that same skillset and mindset to Yellow Mountain StoneWorks, where her sales and marketing duties make her the first point of contact for most clients. During the schematic design stage on projects, Nicole works alongside designers and architects, helping them shape their inspiration in stone.
“I get a charge out of solving design challenges. If you can do anything you want, it’s not as interesting as having certain requirements or constraints. That’s when we discover new products and solutions for stone.”
Erik Nelson
Vice President
“Stone has so much character and life. It’s very exciting to give people here access to the best stone fabricators of any place in the world.”
As YMSW develops new stone resources today, we continue to work with some of the same engineers, supervisors and translators that Erik Nelson hired when he was living in China and working on three major landscape architectural projects in 1996-1998. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and provides cultural facilitation to projects in both China and the U.S. Erik has lived in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Hong Kong.
Erik has a master’s degree in landscape architecture and 14 years experience in design, construction management and international logistics. He manages sourcing, quality control and delivery of YMSW stone orders and products. He negotiates and manages YMSW vendor contracts, resulting in impressive production accuracy and cost savings.
“I’m amazed that we can do what we do. The level of technology today lets us be a bridge between designers here and sources in China with skills that have been passed down for centuries. This window in time is a tremendous opportunity.”