James "Mack" Pearson has announced his retirement after 42 years at Smith Flooring. Pearson, who spent the past 18 years as Smith's sales manager, was honored recently at a retirement party attended by industry representatives who flew in from all over the country.

Pearson started at Smith Flooring in 1963 as a lumber buyer and went on to hold a variety of positions including sawmill manager, flooring mill manager and treating plant manager before being elevated to flooring sales manager in 1988. He is succeeded as sales manager by Kevin Connor, who has worked with Pearson in flooring sales at Smith for the past five years.

Connor is only the fourth sales manager to work at Smith since the wood flooring company was established in 1949. The company, which is headquarterd in Mountain View, Mo., is a family-owned wood flooring business that produces unfinished solid strip flooring.