MFMA
Hall of Fame
 James H Stoehr, Jr.
It
is only fitting that the MFMA recognize "Jim" as he celebrates
the anniversary of his 25th year as owner and Chairman of the Board
of Robbins, Inc. Robbins is the "oldest" member of the MFMA when considering
the tenure of current ownership.
Jim Stoehr has worked tirelessly
for the maple flooring industry and served as President
of the MFMA from 1990 to 1999. This decade
of service becomes the second longest presidential
tenure in the 105-year history of the association.
During his time as President, Jim was
the driving force towards an association focused on
marketing to the industry through the use of funds
generated by marketing dues paid
on each square foot of flooring sold. His vision and
leadership for the funding mechanism, along with the
creation of a marketing committee,
helped position the MFMA as the "authority" on maple sports surfaces
in the eyes of the end-user and architect.
Biography:
Following his college days
at Brown University, James H. "Jim" Stoehr
entered the Air Force as a pilot, served in the Korean
War and was honorably discharged at the rank of 1st
Lieutenant. He joined the
family business full-time in the fall of 1955 and was
a third generation family member involved in the contracting
and installation of hardwood
flooring.
Jim followed in the footsteps of his
grandfather, Robert A. Stoehr, founder of The Cincinnati
Floor Company in 1894,
and his father, James
H. Stoehr, Sr. Working with other family members,
Jim, and his cousin Robert A. Stoehr III, was part
of a team leading the
Ohio-based company
through numerous growth cycles including hardwood
flooring, and commercial interiors. The company quickly
established respect
in the industry
by following the examples set by the Stoehr family
predecessors adhering to the German principles of quality
and service.
As its reputation for quality products
and skilled craftsman grew, major national projects requested their
expertise.
Such notables include
the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, with eight
acres of teak herringbone wood floors and the National
Art Gallery, in Washington
D.C. with four and a half acres of plank wood flooring.
In addition to these significant commercial projects,
the company also installed
numerous gymnasium floors throughout Ohio, Indiana,
Kentucky and West Virginia including Ohio State University's Larkins
Hall and the Myrl Shoemaker Sports Center located at
the University of Cincinnati.
Following the death of his cousin,
Robert A. Stoehr, III in 1988,
Jim sold the name of The Cincinnati Floor Company
and the assets of the flooring division to Doug Drenik,
a long-standing and loyal employee
of the company.
The Robbins Flooring Company was founded
by the Abendroth family of Rhineland, Wisconsin in
the early 1920's and operated the White
Lake, WI and Ishpeming, MI plants to the early 1960's where it was
sold to the E. L. Bruce Company of Memphis, Tennessee. By the late
1960's, the company's assets were sold to Memphis-based, Cook Industries
as Bruce divested its holdings to numerous entities
including Triangle-Pacific, a manufacturer of kitchen cabinets.
Jim
Stoehr purchased the assets of Robbins Inc. from
Cook Industries of Memphis, Tennessee in 1977 to continue
the manufacture of maple
flooring for the sports and recreational industry
from the White Lake and Ishpeming plants.
Under the
direction of Jim's guiding hand, these two plants manufactured
random length strip maple and other maple flooring products along
with introducing to the industry a number of innovative products,
including Strip-Titeâ, a patented "nailed-channel" design, Sportwoodä,
Bio-Cushionä , Bio-Channelä and more recently Air-Channel
Star ä, Mach Oneä, and Sportwood Ultra Starä.
In addition
to these revolutionary sub-floor designs developed
for use beneath the Robbins random-length maple strip product, Jim
also
developed and refined the process of manufacturing
an engineered maple strip utilizing a patented finger-jointing
process. This product was
developed and is marketed as Continuous Strip XLä. His contracting
experience helped him to recognize the detrimental effects on installation
efficiency brought about by changing hardwood grade rules and uncertain
lumber resources. Jim Stoehr's new manufacturing process continues
to revolutionize the maple flooring industry by producing a "uniform
length" maple floor that counters the efforts required to fasten the
growing number of short boards manufactured in the older random-length
process. In addition, the "engineered seam" method provides the owner
a surface that is documented to increase overall flooring
strength when used in both generic and proprietary
flooring systems.
Jim Stoehr was also the driving force
in bringing to the North American market a systematic method of quantifying
the
performance characteristics
of today's sport floors. His desire to provide the facility owner
a measurable form of objective evidence of performance enhancing bio-mechanical
properties, led Jim to invest in the research and development of DIN
18032, Part 2 testing procedures. Until this "Robbins-driven" concept
took shape in the U.S., only anecdotal evidence existed
to compare the performance of sport floor systems.
In the past twelve years,
and since its introduction in this country, the DIN
Certification testing process has become the default
standard by which floors are
measured. It is now recognized and used by numerous
purchasing bodies and has become the minimum standard
for flooring performance published
by the American College of Sports Medicine.
In addition
to the innovation in maple flooring manufacturing,
Jim Stoehr led Robbins to recognize the need for multi-use
floors, or
surface working in combination with maple. Robbins
introduced to the North American market a line of
synthetic surfaces under various trade
names to complement the maple sports surface industry.
James
H. "Jim" Stoehr today serves Robbins Inc. as Chairman of the
Board and Director of Strategic Thinking.
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