John Byrnes

John Byrnes began his career in athletic flooring in September 1966 with Anderson Ross Floors in Chicago, Illinois. He was hired as the salesman and estimator for athletic floors.

In 1968, he moved his family to open a central Illinois office for Anderson Ross floors. In the spring of 1969, he took a job for Robbins as a Midwest rep. He was hired by Carl Abendroth, MFMA Hall of Fame member.

In the fall of 1970, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee and was promoted to the General Manager position for Robbins Sport Floors as Wood Floor Product Manager and given full responsibility of running two in-house contractors for Robbins.

In the fall of 1974, he took a position with Donovan Equipment which had offices in Chicago and Milwaukee. Again, his responsibilities were sales, estimating and growing the business from scratch.

He served on the Board of Directors of the Wood and Synthetic Flooring Institute (WSFI) from 1974-1979 and WSFI Board President from 1977-1979.

In 1979, John, and his wife Laurie, started their own small contracting business with partner George Pitzer named VFI. Working out of their house in Woodstock, Illinois, John again grew a small company into a viable contracting company through his great effort.

In the winter of 1984 John bought out his partner George and changed the name of the company to Floors Incorporated.

As a member of the MFMA, he was the Advisory Council’s first chairman serving two years in this position.
John retired from the day to day operations of Floors Inc. in 2010, but still keeps active with golf, travel and working with Habitat for Humanity. He resides in South Carolina.