Stone People: All in the Surfaces
“I don’t think textured surfaces are going to be a niche product,” he says. “I think it’s going to be much broader than that.”
But, then, O’Koon has always had an eye out for what’s new and innovative in his adopted industry and that, in turn, has helped him grow Cardinal Kitchens into a full-service countertop wholesaler.
Click photo to enlargePRODUCTION-ORIENTED
O’Koon’s involvement with the company dates back to 1971, when he bought a laminate shop with five employees. At that time, he was mainly wanted a job.
He explains that, after college and military service, he went into a family business making cookies. However, when things didn’t work out, he began researching manufacturing types of business, and found a small laminate shop for sale.
Describing himself as “pretty mechanical and production-oriented,” the countertop shop seemed to be a good fit. And, O’Koon made it grow; by the end of the decade, he started a second company to make laminate furniture.
“We were making parson’s tables and cubes and other laminate furniture, and then we got into doing office furniture and case goods,” he says. “At one point, we were just so crowded in our building that I decided I either had to open another facility or sell off part of the business.”
Analyzing the situation, O’Koon determined countertops to be the primary focus, so he sold off the furniture business. Part of his faith in countertops came from his decision to add DuPont™ Corian® to his product line.
As with today’s textured granite, he says it initially wasn’t an easy sell.
“That was back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s,” O’Koon says. “At that time when you told people the cost of a Corian top, they either laughed at you or passed out.”
However, the business continued to grow until the late ‘90s, when O’Koon realized both laminates and solid surface were beginning to be eclipsed by stone and quartz products.
Click photo to enlarge
“We met the people from Cosentino, who were in the process of introducing Silestone® to this country,” he says. “We decided to take on the Silestone brand and the Cosentino people helped us learn about how to handle the material and guided us on the purchase of equipment. We set up a fabrication shop, and a couple years later transitioned into granite.”
Making the transition wasn’t all that difficult, he adds. Cardinal Kitchens’ current location – where it moved in the mid-1980s – encompasses 60,000 ft² of space, or enough to add the new equipment and a water-treatment system, and the Silestone and granite just became additional products O’Koon could offer to his existing customers.
Most of the company’s work is sold through kitchen-and-bath shops, designers and the trades. However, O’Koon says the method of doing business changed a great deal over the years.
For instance, when the company offered just laminates, it wasn’t uncommon for the client to phone in the size of the top to be fabricated and delivered. O’Koon says it was up to the selling shop to get things measured correctly and then do the installation.
What’s changed that is the advent of the home centers and a move toward providing installation of products.
“The home centers put a lot more responsibility on suppliers like us,” O’Koon says. “A lot of these people never leave their showroom. We contact the customer, we go and do the measurements, we make sure we have all the information, we do the fabrication, we go back and install it, and then we follow up to make sure they’re happy.
TIME TO PROFIT
Regardless of what product Cardinal Kitchens is fabricating for a client, O’Koon says part of his success comes from a desire to have a state-of-the-art operation.
For instance, in the laminate department, the company features a production line that makes post-formed tops.
“That’s where you take a sheet of laminate and adhere it to a board,” he explains. “It’s then run down the line and heated to bend the laminate around the edge and to form the backsplash, so you have a seamless surface.”
The blanks are then cut to size, and either customized in the Cardinal shop or left to the client to do that work.
