Finkell, Cotton to Launch Private-Label Wood Floor Company

When Don Finkell retired last year after more than three decades in wood flooring manufacturing, he wasn't sure he was going to like it. As it turns out, he didn't. Although he traveled to every continent but one in the last year, "I couldn't feel like I was doing something significant or that I enjoyed doing," he says. "I really do enjoy the wood flooring business and making beautiful products that people want to put in their homes."

To that end, Finkell is re-entering the wood flooring marketplace with American OEM Wood Floors, an engineered wood floor manufacturing company that will officially launch at the NWFA Wood Flooring Expo in Nashville later this month.

Finkell, who ran Anderson until it was bought by Shaw in 2007 and then worked for Shaw until his retirement in February of last year, will be joined by familiar faces, most notably fellow former NWFA Chairman Wayne Cotton, who will head up the sales and marketing.

Finkell sees an opportunity in the growing private-label business that has been dominated by Chinese companies. "In the last 10 years, China has captured about 43 percent of the [engineered] marketplace; only 42 percent is from the U.S. and the other 15 percent is from all over the world," he says, citing statistics from the 2011 ITC investigation regarding Chinese engineered flooring imports. The majority of that Chinese product is produced for the private-label business, whether wholesale distributors, buying groups, big box stores or others, he says. "What we're talking about doing is to give an alternative to private-label programs that is domestically produced."

To accomplish that, Finkell plans to use a model he and his team are familiar with: prison labor. The company has leased a former prison furniture factory in Only, Tenn., from the state of Tennessee, and plans to use what is referred to in the state as "offender labor," as well as civilian workers. This marks the eighth and most sophisticated prison plan Finkell has created, he says.

Finkell expects the factory to be running by the end of the summer and fully integrated by the end of the year.

He says his team is "very optimistic about the possibilities." "It's different from what's historically been done. We've not looking to replace any American-made business; we're looking to replace imports, because we feel like that's where the opportunity is," adding that oftentimes companies importing products are frustrated by long lead times and having to carry excess inventory.

"Since we're not going to have a brand, we're taking a model from what the Chinese do, which is to make a good product at a good price," he says.

The company will have a booth at the NWFA Expo this month and will hold its official launch party during the show.

The new company can be reached at [email protected] or (888) 415-9496.