Best Practices: Weaver’s Flooring America - July 2025
By Jessica Chevalier
This year, Weaver’s Flooring America is celebrating 50 years of business, led by second-generation owners Matt Weaver and his brother-in-law Chad Nussbaum. Matt and Chad operate the business on what they call in-the-trenches ownership. “We like to do the work. We aren’t just sitting behind a desk,” explains Matt. “That’s how my dad ran the business and how we learned it.”
Starting out
Early in his career, Matt’s dad, Kenny Weaver, worked as a flooring installer for a small but diversified company that offered electrical, flooring, construction and paving services. In 1975, the owner decided that he wanted to exit the flooring business, so Kenny was offered the prospect of buying the division. He and his wife, Kathy, took on that challenge, with Kenny overseeing operations and Kathy keeping the books.
After Kenny and Kathy bought the business, they operated out of a small building near James Madison University. The building lacked good frontage, so, in 1981, Kenny took the advice of some elders in the flooring business and moved to a rental location on Route 11 that had much greater visibility. Weaver’s was there for ten years before Kenny and Kathy decided that they wanted to build on the south end of town, where they bought a lot and constructed a modern building in 1991. That building is where the Harrisonburg location remains today, with a few additions since its construction.
Matt, meanwhile, had worked a couple of summers as an installation helper during his school years. In 1995, after leaving college, he was asked to run a car wash in Winchester, Virginia and was seriously considering the opportunity when his dad said, “Have you thought about working in the store?”
At the time, Matt, then 19, had met a girl named Michelle Nussbaum, whom he was dating, and that was an incentive to stick around Harrisonburg, so Matt began working in the family business, completing data entry tasks and waiting on customers.
Four years later, Matt’s sister, also named Michelle, began dating Michelle Nussbaum’s brother, Chad, who joined the business working in the warehouse. Both couples married, so Michelle Weaver became Michelle Nussbaum, and Michelle Nussbaum became Michelle Weaver. Today, the couples run Weaver’s Flooring America, with the Michelles splitting office manager tasks (following the retirement of Kenny’s sister, Diane Yoder), Matt leads the sales function, and Chad heads up logistics.
Of the arrangement between he and Chad, Matt says, “Our personalities are different, but our mindsets are the same. We think the same way about things. We rarely disagree. I am more of a people person, and Chad is more of the process guy, behind the scenes. He likes merchandising and buying, though he could sell if he wanted to.”
In 2008, the business acquired Hodge Floor America in Waynesboro from friend John Hodge. Hodge’s sister Barbara Coyner stayed on to run that store. The locations are about 30 minutes apart and had no overlap in clientele, so it was an advantageous acquisition for the Weaver’s team.
The couples bought Kenny and Kathy out four years ago, and the elder pair retired. Matt laughs that they thought Kenny would have a hard time stepping away, but, in fact, he only comes around now to throw items in the business dumpster, which Matt and Chad only know from camera footage.
Recipe for business
While residential remodel represents the largest portion of Weaver’s work, the company also does mainstreet commercial work and serves the builder business. The commercial work includes retirement community and university work-there are three universities in and near Harrisonburg: James Madison University, Franklin University and Eastern Mennonite University. The builder work is the result of long-standing partnerships with local builders. These non-tract builders generally build three to ten homes per year.
“We don’t chase giant jobs,” explains Matt. “We would rather do replacement work, which is more our forte. We want to be able to do what we do well and honor our reputation.”
Matt and Chad consider Weaver’s reputation within the community as its greatest asset. “We go to the ends of the earth to take care of the customer,” explains Matt. “After working with us, customers often say, ‘I can’t believe how easy this was.’ We want to show them that we care and do what we say we’ll do. We don’t promise things that we can’t deliver. That’s important.” The company has a 4.8 rating on Google with almost 80 reviews.
Building a team
Weaver’s does not place help-wanted ads. “Everyone who is employed here was someone that we knew from the community,” says Matt. When Weaver’s needs a new team member, the staff looks around town to identify people who, no matter their field, display character and then approach them about joining the business. “Character is the most important thing,” notes Matt.
Once hired, Matt and Chad train the staff on what they call “The Weaver Way,” using shadowing as well as Flooring America training tools. The business does not have a lot of turnover in staffing.
Weaver’s also believes it’s important to have a good fit with installers. No matter how talented, Weaver’s expects installers to adhere to standards of quality and professionalism. “We have had to part ways with installers at times, even if the quality of work was excellent, if we didn’t culturally line up, though it’s tough to see a good-quality worker go,” Matt reports. “We are very loyal to our installation team, and once they are on our list, they aren’t jumping ship.”
Future focused
Matt and Michelle have four kids, while Chad and Michelle have three. The seven are between the ages of 15 and 26. Chad and Michelle’s son Brendan has already joined the family business, working on special projects with his father as well as in software technologies.
As part of the 50th anniversary celebration, Weaver’s hired a consultant to assemble a timeline of Weaver’s growth and development, and, as such, the third generation is “more aware of the heritage of the business now than before.” Additional Weaver-Nussbaum kids have expressed an interest in joining the family business eventually, and Matt and Chad hope the business continues to be a place of opportunity for their children and for generations to come.
In addition to welcoming in the next generation of operators, Matt and Chad are focused on continuing to serve the communities in which they reside. “We have won numerous consecutive Best of the Valley awards,” says Matt, “and we are working to stay relevant in consumers’ minds. We work harder than anyone else at what we do, and we want to get that message out.”
One challenge in that battle is the ebb and flow of consumer confidence. “Flooring is elective,” says Matt. “For the first 30 years, locals knew our business’ name, but the area has grown quickly. How can we reach the newer folks? We believe that if they give us one opportunity, they will see we are different.”