On May 1, Frank Peters became president of Mohawk Flooring following the retirement of Monte Thornton. Peters was a logical successor, having served Mohawk in many capacities since coming on board in 1993, including director of product development, vice president of research and development, and vice president of manufacturing services for residential before becoming senior vice president of operations in October 2007. He recently spoke with FCNews associate publisher and editorial director Steven Feldman about himself, the company and the future.

Who is Frank Peters?

Well, I have 38 years of experience in the industry—the last 15 with Mohawk—with most of my time having been spent in product development and manufacturing positions, both residential and commercial. But in every role I’ve had, I worked closely with the sales and marketing groups to ensure our strategies were closely aligned.

What do you enjoy most?

My first love has always been product development. I like creating products and taking them to our customers. That’s been an extremely rewarding experience for me.

Give me a product development highlight from your Mohawk tenure.

I’m particularly proud of what we’ve done with Smart-Strand. We started with a new polymer and created a fiber that we utilized in a variety of carpet styles, and these styles provided unique characteristics such as permanent stain resistance with exceptional floor performance.

What do you feel you bring to the table as the new president of the Mohawk Flooring Group?

Balance. I have the experience of running fairly complex manufacturing businesses, but I also understand the needs of the customer with my product development background. So, in general, I understand customer needs, and I can utilize our assets to manufacture to those needs.

What are your short- and long-term goals?

Short-term, my goal is cost containment and balancing capacities to our demand. However, in doing so, I want to be prepared for the rebound when it does occur. I have to be aware of the growth potentials and have the assets and products in place to service the market. Long term, we are going to continue to invest in innovation and the brand. I look forward to continuing the investments we’ve made in SmartStrand and EverStrand. We will also continue our focus on customer integration— in other words provide better value and better services to our customer. Examples would include Mohawk University, retail marketing programs, etc.

How do you provide better value?

We provide better value through exceptional quality, and differentiated products and services so our customer can be more profitable.

Where do you see Mohawk’s best opportunities going forward?

One of the areas we need to address is how to leverage all our flooring segments. We have a distinct advantage here and, in fact, I don’t think there is another manufacturer that has our level of strength in all the flooring segments. We can bring it all to the customer in one package.

What can you tell me about your arrangement with Congoleum?

Congoleum has been a good partner. We would like to see that relationship continue. It’s been good for both of us.

Talk a little about the transition from Monte Thornton to you.

Our philosophies are the same, which creates a seamless transition. Monte and I have fairly similar backgrounds, so I think our styles are fairly similar. Both of us have come up through the organization in operations and manufacturing-related roles. We are both engineers, so we understand how a manufacturing business should operate. One of the things Monte has done is put together a fantastic leadership team. The team comes from a variety of corporate cultures and allows us to draw on a wealth of knowledge.

How would you like to see Mohawk perceived in the marketplace?

Obviously, I want Mohawk to be perceived as the leader in flooring. I want the company to be perceived as the only complete flooring resource. I want it to be perceived as the company that offers the highest quality and service, and the easiest to do business with. Finally, I want Mohawk to be considered the leader in styling and innovation. I believe we currently maintain that position, especially with our Karastan brand.

Speaking of Karastan, you’re broadening your target audience, right?

Yes, we have updated our product assortment and styling direction to give Karastan a more updated image.

What do you see as Mohawk’s competitive advantages?

1. Our family of brands. This helps with consumer recognition.

2. Our aligned dealer network. I believe it forms a real partnership so our dealers consider us as more of a partner rather than just a vendor.

3. Our logistics support and delivery system. This gives us the strength to deliver on-time, reliable service at a competitive cost advantage to our customers.

4. Our backward integration. It helps us control costs and the quality of raw materials we use.
5. Our people. This may be our biggest advantage.

What areas can Mohawk improve in?

One thing I see as an industry issue is brand awareness. When you compare flooring to other industries like electronics and appliances, we don’t hold up in terms of brand awareness. We are making every effort to improve our brand awareness with the consumer.

Talk a little about the green movement as it relates to the flooring industry, and what’s next on the horizon for Mohawk?

This is one of the most exciting areas at Mohawk. We have embraced this environmental stewardship for years on the commercial side. Now we are seeing interest from the residential market. In fact, there are over 500 Mohawk products currently containing recycled materials. More specifically, there’s recycled PET—our EverStrand product—where we recycle three million bottles per year. Then there’s the Greenworks center where we take back carpet and turn it into usable polymer. One that is important to us is the dramatic reductions we have made in water usage in our plants through innovation that our engineering group developed.

Final thoughts?

We are trying to manage through a difficult, slow-growth environment, but Mohawk is committed to focusing on the customer. We are dedicated to adding to the products and services we offer our customers to ensure their profitability and success.