“People are important when you’re focused on being successful,” said Doug Chadderdon, chief executive officer of Great Floors, a flooring retailer with 19 stores in the Northwestern United States.
Paul Johnson worked hard to grow his business. In the 20 years since he took over the Carpet One Floor & Home in Tulsa, Okla., he has built the company into a local powerhouse with six locations, raised a family, and become an integral part of his community.
Forty-five years ago, Chuck Wien earned his degree at Ohio State University and did what many of his generation did: He joined his father in what was then a five-year-old family business, Marshall Carpet in Mayfield Heights, Ohio.
We recently caught up with Matt Karlin, third-generation president of Nemo Tile, as he prepped the company’s sixth retail location set to open in Red Bank, N.J., in late 2016.
Less than a decade ago, Jerel Verner hired Matt Carter, a sales executive with Empire Today, to help run his flooring business, Premier Flooring and Design in Tucker, Ga.
A decade ago, Matt Jorgensen finished college and moved down to Pompano Beach, Fla., from the Washington, D.C., area with his dog and $500 in his pocket.
“The recession in 2007-08 was a hard thing for our company to get adjusted to,” says Jonnie McPeek, principal at Corvin’s Floor Coverings, founded in Elizabethtown, Ky., 30 years ago by her parents.
During the Great Recession, thousands of flooring retailers failed to survive the financial debacle as new construction business declined with the housing crash and consumer remodel budgets dried up.
John Hughes began his adult life working in Omaha for a manufacturer in another industry. During a strike seven years later, he got a side job working with his brothers at a flooring store in Iowa to cover the bills.
