Family Tradition Proves Successful for Millers

In its third year of business, Miller Commercial Flooring Inc. of Springdale grew its revenue 77 percent from $3.10 million in 2004 to $5.50 million in 2005. Now in its fourth year, the family business has found its comfort zone, said Dwayne Miller, president of the company, which does commercial sales and installation for all types of flooring, including carpet, natural stone, ceramic, vinyl sheet tile and commercial hardwood.

“At this point, we feel that we’re about as big as we want to be,” he said. “So, we’re looking at maintaining the level we’re at now with maybe a small increase.”

The Millers have been involved with commercial flooring for many decades now. They owned Miller Flooring Co. in Mena before selling it to Dwayne’s parents in 1991 to move to then-quiet Northwest Arkansas. He did commercial sales before deciding to get back into the family business in 2002.

“We could just tell the way the market was going that there was room for another [flooring] company,” said Dwayne Miller.

The company started off with Dwayne, Sheila and their son Andy. After a year, they added another employee and doubled their office space. Now the Millers have eight employees, including their daughter Aimee, and have tripled the office space since its inception.

So far this year, Dwayne Miller said the company has increased its revenue 25 percent over what it was the same time last year.

“It’s a good increase, but we’ve maintained control,” he said. “Because there’s such a thing as growing too much too fast.”

But they’re comfortable where they are. Sheila Miller said there was a time they came to a crossroads and had to decide on how big they wanted to get. They don’t have to chase that “brass ring” like they did in their 30s and 40s.

And with 95 percent of its work in Washington and Benton counties, the family business is easily maintained.

Floored

Even though Miller is one of many commercial flooring specialty subcontractors in the area, the company has been able to snag big projects such as the Church at Pinnacle Hills in Rogers, the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers and numerous banks throughout Northwest Arkansas.

For the Hammons Center, Miller did all of the flooring installation. One of the interesting details about the $33 million, 125,000-SF convention center is the inlay medallions and marble.

When it received the shipment, it was in pieces and not the usual sections it comes in. The pieces had to be put together like a jigsaw puzzle, Miller said. It took them four days to lay out all the marble and medallions, which were cut by Water Jet Works of Dallas.

Miller Commercial Flooring has been working on the Church at Pinnacle Hills for a month and will finish it in November, in time for its opening.

Sheila Miller said the church is using a lot of natural stone, which has been very popular lately. In the past year, Miller has received 12 to 15 truckloads of natural stone from Italy.

But commercial carpet makes up 35 percent of their sales, with a notable rise in carpet tile, which can run up to 30 percent higher than standard carpet.