James B. Carr

Jim Carr was born in Coshocton, Ohio on March 6, 1934. He graduated from Coshocton High School in 1952. During his high school days, Jim was a member of the golf team and worked at a small grocery store. He credits the owner of that store, Jim Richcreek, for his work ethic.

Jim was awarded a scholarship to Fenn College in Cleveland. His first exposure to the flooring business was a job with Dewees and Roper Flooring as a salesman. His supervisor at Dewees left the company three years later and took Jim with him when he formed Greco Floors in 1956. Their concentration was on residential work. After four years they branched out into commercial work and wood floors. Greco Floors joined the Wood Flooring Institute, a group of contractors who met three times a year to exchange ideas and solve problems. That group provided a vehicle for all to share knowledge and explore solutions, giving Jim a broader base to learn from.

Jim joined the Gellin Company in 1964. This was a larger company with more focus on wood floors. Jim expanded his knowledge of wood and soon found his niche, gymnasium floors, racquetball courts and dance floors.

In 1979, Allen Pinchot from Frank Novak & Sons approached Jim about creating a flooring division that would allow them to cover a wider expanse of interior trades and offer the total interior package to their customers. That vision of two men became the Flooring Specialties Division of Frank Novak & Sons headed by Division Manager, James B. Carr.

Frank Novak & Sons is the largest painting contractor in Northern Ohio. Their slogan is “We Paint the Town”. Their work can be found in facilities in Cleveland and throughout Ohio. This new division was a great fit for Jim Carr. Jim’s field of expertise, gymnasium floors, racquetball courts and dance studios coupled with Jim’s background and experience enabled Flooring Specialties to grow by leaps and bounds and become a well respected installer of wood floors in the Cleveland area.

Jim completed projects in The Cleveland Institute of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, PBS Station — WVIZ, Kenyon College, the renovation at the Cleveland Art Museum and many schools, recreation centers, hospital facilities, numerous churches, and so on. Jim welcomed the challenge of specialty flooring. High-end residential floors were also his forte. Jim served as a past President of the Wood and Synthetic Floor Institute.

Jim has been in the wood floor business so long that he remembers when business was conducted with a man’s word and a hand shake and not 50 page contracts and a team of legal analysts. Many times Jim finds himself looking at a floor to price, a floor that he installed many years before. Jim has been known to say that flooring was his first job and he never learned to look up.

Ask Jim why he has spent 60 years in this industry and he will tell you that the rewards he has received have been in the projects he has done, the friends he has made and the satisfaction of knowing that he did the best he could every day.

Jim Carr and his wife of 57 years, live in Streetsboro, Ohio. He has three children and two grandchildren and still works every day doing what he does best, wood flooring.