I was born and raised in the flooring business. My father, W. Cecil Carpenter, started the business in 1968 as a wholesale flooring distributor. He sold rolls of carpet in Virginia, North and South Carolina. In 1973, he bought a piece of property in Virginia Beach, Va., and built a 30,000-sq.-ft. building, which is where we still operate the company from today.
In the mid to late 70s, more carpet manufacturers began opening, which caused our distribution business to decline as they were selling directly to our retail customers. The roots of our adaptability began here. Our distributor days were coming to an end and my father knew he had to change to survive. He leased the excess space in our warehouse to a carpet installation firm and changed the focus from distributing carpet to selling directly to residential builders, hotels, restaurants and small businesses.