Ralph's celebrates bittersweet 50th anniversary

Rod Lorenz

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Fifty years ago, my father, Ralph Lorenz, took the courageous step of leaving his job at a hardwood flooring company in Appleton to start his own hardwood floor business in Black Creek.

He had a six-year-old daughter and a newborn son (me), and he was looking to the future. He wanted security for his family, and he believed (correctly) that he could achieve it with Ralph’s Hardwoods Floors.

He also loved installing and restoring hardwood floors, and he was very good at it. He wanted to ensure he could keep fulfilling this passion the rest of his life.

Dad started Ralph’s from his garage as a one-man shop, but business quickly grew though word-of-mouth. In the 50 years since, we’ve grown from Dad’s one-man shop in his garage into a company employing 35 people, with a beautiful showroom in Black Creek, and customers across northeast Wisconsin.

We’re extremely proud to be celebrating our 50th anniversary this year, and we will be offering special promotions throughout 2015 to mark the occasion. However, our commemoration of 50 years in business is bittersweet because Dad passed away late last year.

We miss him and wish he were here to celebrate with us. Ralph’s is his “baby,” after all. In 1992, I took over as president, but the values that Dad instilled in the business have always remained our guiding principles. 

We wouldn’t have made it for 50 years, growing our business constantly, if it wasn’t for one such value that Dad always repeated to me—“If you’re not moving forward in business, you’re moving backwards.”

What that means for us at Ralph’s is that we don’t rest on our laurels. We know that if we do, we’ll go “backwards,” falling behind the competition.

If we make a sale, we could be satisfied with that—go in, do the minimum required, and cash our check. But Dad didn’t operate that way, and we don’t operate that way now. To keep Ralph’s moving forward, we know we need to go above-and-beyond. We have to provide first-rate customer service and the highest-quality craftsmanship.

Going forward also means not being content with doing things the way we’ve always done them. That’s why we focus on staying on top of trends in styles, products, and techniques.

This philosophy affects everything we do. For example, when we’re hiring, a  key evaluation we make is whether a job candidate will be satisfied with “okay” or whether they will always looking for better ways to do things and opportunities to wow customers.

Dad used to tell me that he started Ralph’s on the day I was born. I’m not sure about that, but I just celebrated my 50th birthday, so I do know he started it in the same year. I’ve been involved with Ralph’s since I was a young boy, and it seems strange for Dad not to be around anymore. But just as he would have wanted, Ralph’s will keep moving forward.

Dad spirit lives on at Ralph’s. And thanks to the foundation he built, we’re poised to keep doing what he loved—pleasing customers with beautiful hardwood floors—for another 50 years and beyond.

 

Ralph's 50th Anniversary Flooring Specials

 

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