Holmes County's 'hidden gem' Ohio Floor making its mark ...

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PRAIRIE TWP. &#; Not every high school basketball player gets to perform on college courts or those of NBA arenas.

But some former players from this area have helped make the floors on which the college and professional basketball games are played.

Larry Wade, marketing director for The Ohio Floor Company near Shreve, said he and another company executive, Kevin Miller, grew up playing basketball for Garaway.

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"We loved the game and we often talk about where we came from, and now we're doing NBA floors," said Wade, who joined the company in the late s. "We were doing little gym floors here and there. There were six of us back then. If you would have told us what we're doing now, we'd have thought you were crazy."

Ohio Floor has grown by leaps and bounds over the last three decades.

"We've done floors for the Olympics, sent floors overseas. We did floors for the World Cup in China," Wade said. "To think that this is even possible is a testament to the owners of the company and their willingness to take some chances to expand into that realm."

Steve Yoder started Ohio Floor with a few accounts he had purchased from a relative, George Bear of Bear Floor Sanding in Sugarcreek, in the early s.

"He's taken it from one guy and a sander to an international company some 35, 40 years later," Wade said. "This company has grown through good work and word-of-mouth. The work basically sells itself."

Wade learned the business from the ground up &#; literally. He began his career cutting and sanding the floors, eventually moving into marketing for the company.

Hidden gem in Holmes County gets ready for March Madness

Wade calls Ohio Floor one of the hidden gems of Holmes County. The main office is on County Road 1, just west of state Route 83. They also have a warehouse in the Holmesville Industrial Park on County Road 245.

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In a 30,000-square-foot building near Holmesville, employees do the finishing work on portable floors for the NCAA and the NBA, Wade said.

"I often wonder how many people drive past there daily and have no idea of what's going on in those buildings," he said.

"It's local people doing all the work. We don't ship people in from across the country," he continued. "It's people who grew up in this area who have made a career out of working on these high-profile floors."

The company is focusing on NCAA floors through the end of February so the product will be ready in time for March Madness.

"It's pretty cool to see the floors being worked on in this warehouse, and then a month later seeing it on TV at one of the biggest sporting events in the world, the NCAA Final Four tournament," he said. "And the floor was done right here in our own backyard."

How Ohio Floor made it to the big leagues

The company also has a residential side, making flooring for bedrooms, kitchens and hallways. They will refinish existing hardwood floors, or install new pre-finished flooring, and unfinished material, where the sanding and finishing is done onsite.

"The NCAA is where the interest lies for a lot of people, but our company does multiple things," Wade said.

A recent expansion allows the company to make customized prefacing of stairs and floors. A graphics arts division produces temporary designs on gym floors.

About 10 years ago, Connor Sports Floors, a manufacturer of portable sports flooring, began subcontracting their finishing work to The Ohio Floor Company, which helped the local business get promoted to the big leagues.

"They send us a floor on a semi," explained Wade. "We unload it and install it in our facility, sand it, paint it, finish it, put it on racks and let it dry. Once it's done, we ship it to wherever they sold it."

For example, the Brooklyn Nets purchases a floor from Connor, which produces it, then ships it to Ohio Floor where it's finished then delivered to its home arena.

Each panel of a basketball court is about the size of a table, said Wade, noting roughly 195 panels make up a floor.

"The panels lock together with a pin, so they become permanently attached together, but not permanently attached to the facility floor," Wade said. "Once you get them all put together, they're so heavy, they are not going anywhere."

Business connects with schools to help students learn a trade

Dave McMillen figures teen basketball fans can get closer to the game and find a career through Ohio Floor.

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McMillen is an instructor in the building and trades program at West Holmes Schools. 

"A lot of people around here are passionate about basketball," he said, "but statistically speaking, it's going to be hard making a living dribbling a basketball."

Wade said it is important for area companies to build the workforce from the local schools. He said students, and sometimes their teachers, become part of Ohio Floor's summer workforce, when the staff almost doubles in size.

The company works on high school and college gym floors when schools are closed for the summer, said Wade. Projects include tearing out and installing a new flooring, sanding and changing logos, or cleaning floors and adding a fresh finishing coat. 

"We have three months to get all that work done, so we bring on extra workers, and those high school students come in and help us," he said.

High school teachers also work at Ohio Floor during the summer leading student crews.

"If you start with a passion for basketball, you could be doing the floor for the New Jersey Nets," said McMillen. "I think that's pretty cool."

Praters Flooring has been providing basketball floors for the NBA, NCAA and much more for over 30 years.

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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn &#; For some, the basketball court is considered hallowed ground. 

It&#;s a place where dreams begin, legends are born, and mere milliseconds can determine heartbreak or triumph.

For three decades, Chattanooga&#;s John Prater has been creating places for aspiration to blossom.

&#;Our facility is set up to where we've got 350,000 square feet. We house probably 50 basketball courts. It is by far the largest in the world,&#; said Praters Flooring CEO John Prater. &#;We house the floors for the Southeastern Conference, the ACC, CBS classic, WNBA and other conferences.&#;

Prater's facility holds up to nine courts at any given time and the company produces around 80 courts a year. 

The journey to creating a basketball floor begins with a very specific type of wood.

&#;99% of all basketball courts in America come from the upper peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin. It's northern hard maple,&#; Prater said. 

Coming from forests that have been managed for well over a century, the northern hard maple produces a very light wood whose closed grain prevents splintering.

The trees are precisely cut and processed then shipped to Prater&#;s Flooring.

&#;When it comes to us, it is laid out, racked out. It's nailed up, then you come in with a sander and sand it all the way down smooth, two coats of seal, paint or pigment, whatever lines you want. Then put finish over the top, and that&#;s basically the process,&#; Prater said. 

Prater graduated high school in in Chattanooga. Seeking new opportunities, he moved to Dallas after getting his diploma from the University of Tennessee in . 

&#;I was selling finishes, concrete finishes, wood finishes, and met some guys in Texas that did basketball courts, and it intrigued me,&#; Prater said. 

Living in a city as large as Dallas, John yearned for the small-town life and convinced his wife to move back home to Chattanooga. When he returned, he found a muse from an unlikely place, the Tennessee Aquarium. 

&#;It brought on innovation and entrepreneurship, and being in Chattanooga helped at that time. It helped me be an entrepreneur. It helped me be somebody that was trying to think outside of the box and do things that are different,&#; Prater said. 

This newfound inspiration gave birth to Prater&#;s flooring.

The operation began humbly with only John and his wife providing maintenance coats out of his parents&#; home, but the business quickly grew. 

&#;We would sand down a gym floor. We had a blank canvas, and I was the first person to go to the schools and say, &#;What kind of message do you want to get to your community? What type of branding do you want to show with your community when they come into the schools?' I was saying that, but I really didn't even know how we would manage to pull it off,&#; Prater said. 

To remedy this, John took it upon himself to learn graphic design, and his self-honed skills led him to become one of the premier floor makers in the country. 

Prater&#;s clientele list grew, and his business evolved, eventually providing floors to some of the largest arenas in our area, the country and even the world.

&#;We&#;ve provided courts for Space Jam 2, Winning Time, Glory Road, Abbot Elementary, West Side Story for Steven Spielberg, you know, just amazing opportunities that we have been able to come up with to promote basketball. Along with Madison Square Garden, and the United Center, and Barclay and being able to go to Tokyo for the Olympics,&#; Prater said. 

From the NBA, to Disney, to some customers he can&#;t even name publicly, John Prater and those who work for him continue to pride themselves on the work they do right here in East Tennessee.

&#;Whether it's a high-level program, or whether it's a middle school, there is pride associated with it. There are expectations associated with it, and they're spending money on a renovation. It's personal and so you want to go into every project to create a showplace,&#; Prater said. 

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