Mocksville Mayor, Will Marklin, welcomes FinishWorks to Mocksville
“Everything you touch has a coating,” said Myron Miller, vice-president, and general manager of FinishWorks, holding up a Calloway golf ball and pointing to a Monroe shock, a Heritage guitar, and a display of wood-stained cabinet door samples during a tour of the company’s blending/distribution facility in Mocksville.
A leading manufacturer of wood, metal, and specialty industrial coatings, FinishWorks opened its doors in Mocksville two years ago in the old Crown Wood building at 125 John Crotts Road. Since then, the company has developed $3 million a year in new business while shifting established customers over from its facility in Hickory. Local customers include Ashley Furniture, Funder America, and Beaufurn. Its paints and stains can be found on furniture by companies like Thomasville, Bassett, Henredon, and Drexel Heritage.
Last week the company celebrated its success with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and customer appreciation event complete with hamburgers, bratwurst, and homemade ice cream.
During the ceremony, hosted by the Davie County Chamber of Commerce, Mocksville Mayor Will Marklin welcomed the company to Mocksville.
“We are really excited to be here in Davie County, you guys have been great,” replied Shane Withers, director of sales for FinishWorks. “We look forward to lots of years of growth here in Mocksville.”
FinishWorks is a subsidiary of RPM International, Inc., a global leader in specialty coatings that serves both the industrial and consumer markets. The company is comprised of eight regional blending/distribution facilities and two manufacturing plants. It’s known for providing color consistency as well as for developing leading-edge technology and trendsetting color design. One of the biggest breakthroughs in coatings in the last 50 years is the company’s isocyanate-free urethane coating.
“A” Players
According to Miller, FinishWorks was drawn to Mocksville because of its perfect location. It’s close to High Point and Charlotte and has a wealth of furniture and metal manufacturing companies within a 100-mile radius. In fact, a site survey revealed 1,066 companies radiating away from Mocksville like the spokes in a wheel.
Additionally, the area’s rich furniture heritage has provided a pool of highly-talented chemists for the facility’s custom blending operation.
“I like to hire “A” players, and they are definitely in this region,” Miller said. “These veterans are professionals and they are a dying breed.”
The company employees five full-time people in Mocksville in addition to sales staff.
FinishWorks – A Win-Win for Everyone
FinishWorks is like a paint store on steroids, a hybrid of both a paint store and manufacturer. The chemists in its color lab can match and custom blend paint and stain amounts ranging from one-gallon cans to 500-gallon batches.
“We are pretty nimble and can customize quickly,” said Miller. “If you brought in your grandmother’s antique desk drawer and wanted to match the color, we could do that right here in our color lab. Each of our locations has its own color lab where colors are developed every day. We probably develop between 200 to 250 colors company-wide every week.”
Although the company’s primary focus is coatings, it also sells related supplies. According to Miller, FinishWorks is the largest distributor of Kremlin spray equipment in North American. “Anyone who is going to buy our coating is also going to have to apply it.” The Mocksville facility also includes a showroom that sells paint and stain-related sundries to the public.
The facility serves as a distribution point for customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, and Alabama.
Miller envisions that the entire cavernous warehouse will be filled floor-to-ceiling with product within the next five years and serve as a larger distribution point. “We don’t have the building full yet, but it’s been a great location for us,” he said with a smile.
“FinishWorks in Mocksville is a terrific example of the local supply chain economy in which a cluster of innovative small businesses moves into an area with large manufacturing operations and becomes part of a network of local suppliers, creating even more new jobs in the area,” said Terry Bralley, president of the Davie County Economic Development Commission. “This network of local suppliers, in turn, enables our local manufacturers to be nimble and responsive to market opportunities. It’s a win-win for everyone.“
