Finishing Line: Owner of Carolina Wood Floors says company found niche in sports floors

Carolina Wood Floors Inc. in Winston-Salem has always dabbled in gymnasium flooring.

But owner Mike Causby began taking that side of his business a bit more seriously in 1999, buying a gym-flooring company in Greensboro called Gym Gloss Co.

Carolina Wood Floors was doing residential, commercial, contract and remodeling work, but it wanted a more diverse mix of offerings.

Jose Hernandez (left) and Sam Jones of Carolina Wood Floors prepare the gym floor at North Surry High School for painting. -- Journal Photo by Jennifer Rotenizer.

Now, gym flooring is really serious business at Carolina Wood Floors.

The company, which specializes in the installation and refinishing of hardwood floors, has a growing sports-flooring division. It accounts for about 20 percent of the company's overall business.

"By being diversified, we're staying pretty busy," Causby said yesterday. "We're really pleased and fortunate to be able to say that."

The company is scheduled to complete a sanding job on the gym at North Surry High School in Mount Airy today. Recent jobs include gymnasiums floors at Gospel Light Christian School and Glenn High School in Kernersville, Surry Community College in Dobson, Burlington Christian Academy in Burlington, and Oak Ridge Military Academy in Oak Ridge.

Causby said that the division is growing for several reasons.

"There's very little competition," he said.

Carolina Wood Floors has found a niche in sports floors in part because its biggest competition is in the Raleigh and Charlotte areas. The bulk of the division's business is for schools in the Triad.

The division does logos and has made a point of hiring knowledgeable employees who can handle different jobs, including sanding big areas. It can also design floors for gyms, churches, dance studios and schools.

Causby estimates that he spent $60,000 to $70,000 on new equipment for the division this year for long-term growth.

Josh Walton, who is in charge of the division, said that the new equipment has allowed the company to do faster and higher-quality work.

Last year, a job at Mount Tabor High School required slightly more than two weeks for sanding a gym floor to the bare wood, repainting and finishing. Employees used the division's old equipment.

At North Surry High School, a similar job, employees are using the new equipment and are on track to finish in six days.

Causby said that the company has gained a reputation for quality work over the years. He said that not everyone can install and repair gym floors because of a wide variety of installation techniques.

He started in the flooring industry in 1973 and worked in all aspects of the industry from retail to wholesale.

Carolina Wood Floors started in 1988 as a division of Carolina Marble & Tile Co. Inc., based in Winston-Salem. One of the company's early jobs was removing and replacing a gym floor at Winston-Salem State University in the early 1990s.

Causby bought the division from Carolina Marble in 1995 and hired Walton full time in 2004 to head up the sports-flooring division.

"I've been around sports all my life," Walton said, "and I've always been a huge basketball fan so it just went hand-and-hand. It's fun to see a floor that goes from looking like it hadn't been take care of at all to looking like a brand new floor."

The average price for an installation is $100,000.

Carolina Wood Floors operates from its headquarters at 108 Tucker Ave. off Country Club Road and has about 55 full-time and contract workers. Eight of the full-time employees work in the sports-flooring division.

The division does the majority of its refinishing and recoating work at schools during the summer when school is out.

The division installed two gym floors completely this summer, and Walton is negotiating for three more. The job at North Surry is the division's 14th sanding job, to the bare wood, in 2007. The company estimates that it has buffed and refinished gyms at 80 to 100 schools this summer. At least 65 of them are repeat customers on a maintenance schedule.

Causby sees no limit on growth for his sports-flooring division.

"We could probably do as much as we want to," he said. "We get calls basically every day from somebody either wanting a quote on a gym or asking questions about their gyms."

Walton said that there are a lot of churches, recreation centers and schools that want work done on their gym floors.

"There's so much money in scholastics now that wasn't there years ago," he said.

■ Fran Daniel can be reached at 727-7366 or at fdaniel@wsjournal.com.