Wisconsin Hardwood Retailer Passes to Second Gener
Black Creek, WI, February 21--When Ralph Lorenz yielded control of Ralph’s Hardwood Floors — the company he founded in 1965 — he handed it over to the new owner, his son Rod, according to the Post-Crescent.
The elder Lorenz saw a niche in the market when one of his competitors retired, so he launched his own company, He created a large demand primarily sanding and refinishing wood floors, since building contractors generally installed flooring themselves in that era.
After a successful business run of 27 years, he retired and sold the company to Rod in 1992.
“I thought I knew everything,” recalled the younger Lorenz, 40. “I had a very naive view.”
Although Lorenz had been helping his father sand and finish wood floors since his teens and had graduated from the University of Wisconsin– Oshkosh with a degree in business administration, he learned more by dealing with daily challenges than in a college classroom, he said.
"I learned how to interact with people and treat people fairly," he said.
Lorenz began to grow the company, adding employees yearly from the eight his father had to a current payroll of 32 — 20 field workers, eight office personnel and four part-time employees.
"I hired a sales person in 1993 to help me manage the company," Lorenz said.
Working with contractors throughout the state, Lorenz’s market concentration is in the Fox Valley and Green Bay. Ninety percent of his work is installing wood floors and the majority goes into new construction rather than existing houses.
"Wood floors have increased in popularity during the last decade," said Mark Triggiano, the company’s sales manager for nearly 12 years.
Durability and ease of maintenance combine to give homeowners good value, Triggiano said.
Lorenz began a major expansion to the Black Creek facility in October and hopes to have the 7,000-square-foot addition completed in March.
"We wanted a bigger showroom," Lorenz explained. Increased warehouse space will allow him to keep nearly 100,000 square feet of flooring on hand.
"Our showroom will have four areas, exotic woods, softer grains, like maple and cherry, bigger grains, like oak and ash and rustic."
Many homeowners want a distressed look and Lorenz says a hand-scraped board is popular despite a cost that is 2½ times traditional wood flooring.
"It looks like a bad sanding job," Lorenz joked. "It’s a very unique look."
Wood flooring choices were limited to seven sizes of three species — red oak, white oak and maple — when Lorenz took over as company president.
"Now we have 20 different species and a distribution channel that gets wood from Africa, Australia, South America and the Far East," he said.
The amount of wood flooring in a newly constructed house has doubled in the last decade, averaging about 800 square feet, but the most popular areas remain kitchens and foyers.
"Our industry is changing," Triggiano said. "Customers are more knowledgeable (because) information is available on the Internet.
"With hundreds of choices of woods available and new modern finishes, the wood floor industry has never been more ready to meet future demands."
