Back in 2006, Katie Jensen just wanted to come home.

After growing up in Kenner, she'd left town for college and was working for a shipping company in New Jersey. But she missed her parents and six siblings, who were back in the New Orleans area dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

As it happened, her father — New Orleans trucking industry veteran Jack Jensen — was in the process of buying a franchise to sell natural stone products to post-storm home renovators, and he needed someone to run it. They quickly hatched a plan, and the younger Jensen came back to town to be the first to officially slide open the roll-up door at the Triton Stone warehouse on River Road, a mile upriver from the Huey P. Long Bridge.

From that entry into the stone import business nearly two decades a

See Full Page