Dalton—Lew Migliore, president and owner of LGM Technical Carpet Services located here, and FCNews columnist for the past 20 years of the “Claims File,” has announced the formation of a new entity, LGMTCS & Associates, Technical Flooring Services, LLC.

Migliore stated that, “after 35 years in the industry concentrating my efforts in carpet and vinyl claims, complaints, consulting and troubleshooting the opportunity has presented itself to drastically expand the business.”

This expansion includes the addition of two new associate partners. Benny Wood, former president of Advanced Adhesive Technologies who Migliore has worked with for over 20 years, and Sim Crisler, who was with Milliken Carpet for 33 years. Wood has over 35 years in the floor covering industry as an adhesive expert. Crisler is a field expert in modular tile and patterned product. “We also have associate experts in wood, vinyl, ceramic, laminate, substrates anything to do with floor covering materials and associated products,” said Migliore.

LGM & Associates, as the new company will be known, is the only enterprise of its kind in the flooring industry. “We’ve been working in these flooring material areas for years for clients all over the country” said Migliore. “We offer a unique service by the best-of-the-best in their field. The business has continued to expand to the extent that it got increasingly difficult to carry the load virtually alone, even though we have an excellent staff. Because of changes in their careers, both Wood and Crisler are a perfect fit to the business. All of us had a tre-mendous amount of ex-perience in the field. Benny and Sim are a perfect fit for LGM.”

Answers & Resolutions

The business was formally started on May 1st, with Migliore as president and CEO, and Wood and Crisler as vice presidents. “The benefits of Benny and Sim’s addition were immediately evident,” said Migliore. “Cases and clients we would not have been able to serve before have been added. A lot of our work is with attorneys, large commercial clients, special projects and educational programs. We can now do more of this work and have the added expertise of being able to expand our services. We’re actually in the business of peace of mind. Our clients, big and small, come to us for answers to their questions and for help resolving problems. We are the flooring covering experts with the answers. I guess you could say we’re the CSI of the floor covering industry with additional expertise.”

“I am pleased, proud and honored to be involved in this new association with Lew Migliore and Benny Wood,” said Crisler. “I originally got to know Lew and Benny about 20 years ago primarily through our common membership and active participation in various industry groups. After a long-term association with them and after seeing their commitment not just to these groups but to the flooring industry as a whole, I came to admire both of them greatly.

“I consider the circumstances that led to the three of us being available at the same time with each of us having an active and passionate interest in creating just the sort of association that we now have to be an incredible stroke of good luck,” he added. “As the three of us bring our varied talents and expertise together along with our extensive individual contact networks in the flooring industry, I would be hard pressed to think of a situation that we could not fully address.”

Working Together

“Lew and I have talked for years about creating a consulting/technical support company,” said Wood. “We have worked together, compared notes, and solved hundreds of flooring problems, issues or claims for hundreds of companies and individuals without capitalizing on our relationship. I have always been willing to share my expertise with anyone who asked. Lew finally convinced me we could benefit from the 75 years of combined floor covering knowledge and experience we have.

“Combined,” he added, “the three of us could provide over 100 years of flooring expertise. This has never been offered to the entire floor covering industry. Services such as installation assistance and guidance, claims, testing, product specifications, legal assistance, mediation, product development and training; we can do it all and with this team and our other associates, we plan to.

“I have dreamed of this for a very long time. Now that my son, Gregory, can more than assume my position at AAT (Advanced Adhesive Technology), I am ready to have fun and that is exactly how I see this new adventure, fun! I’m really excited and looking forward to this new venture.”

“This in no way will affect the objectivity and independence LGM has always had because each case we take or client we have is served on a project-by-project basis,” he stressed. “We don’t have, nor will we have, a retainer with any mill.”

LGM’s offices are located at 519 Oxford Street in Dalton. “We have doubled the size of our office space and are in the process of developing technology that will afford anyone in the industry information on-line,” said Migliore. “I have always like to push the envelope but there’s only so much you can do alone. With the addition of Sim, Benny and our other associates I will have the opportunity to market and expand the business to offer services we have only up to this point touched upon.”

For more information about LGMTCS & Associates, Technical Flooring Services, call 706/370-5888.
—Louis Iannaco