Entrepreneurs found a product and a town
July 10, 2009By Abby Stewart
Five years ago, Frank Minutillo owned his own video production company in Manhattan. Today, he is the co-owner of Wilmington’s Flexible Floor Systems, LLC. He and his business partner, Joseph DeLiberto, who owned a catering company in New Jersey where they both lived, began talking of ways to escape their hectic lives and decided to move to Wilmington in 2006 to try their hand in the resurfacing business.
“We wanted to get out of the rat race of the city and the stress of living with the high taxes, so five years ago we started to look for something else we thought we would be able to do,” Minutillo said.
In 2004, while searching for ideas for their new business venture, Minutillo and DeLiberto heard about Pebble Flex, a soft safety surface that was to replace old surfaces in places like playgrounds, amusement parks, locker rooms, pool decks and other recreational areas. The two then attended a training seminar for Pebble Flex in New Jersey.
“We thought ‘Wow! This is really a cool, unique product,’” Minutillo said.
The two became certified and trained in Pebble Flex and they thought it would be a perfect product to specialize in across the Carolinas. They considered moving to Hilton Head, S.C., but weren’t impressed with the school systems and each with two children in middle and high school, education was a big selling point.
After researching the area further they both were excited to tell the other about the city they had found, and they both had come up with Wilmington.
“Education was an important reason for moving to North Carolina,” Minutillo said. “We knew the college system in North Carolina was awesome. We also wanted to be by the ocean. It was just meant to be.”
The partners started visiting Wilmington from New Jersey to
get things situated, but one of the most difficult things was convincing their families that the move was the best idea.
Minutillo and DeLiberto spent their first year in Wilmington mainly with their families, helping with the transition, but began focusing more heavily on the business a year later, in the beginning of 2008.
“We thought it would do well here because there are so many country clubs, therefore there should be a need,” Minutillo said.
Flexible Floors began with a few jobs in Myrtle Beach, Greenville, S.C., and even in Cincinnati, Ohio, but not in Wilmington.
“It’s all about networking,” Minutillo said. “Everything takes time.”
The company, which operates out of their North Chase warehouse, comprises Minutillo and DeLiberto, who hire out contractors on a job to job basis.
Flexible Floor Systems, LLC., designs and installs the product as a new surface, to cover up current concrete areas, or to replace the older generation of rubberized surfacing with the new Pebble Flex, which doesn’t break down with UV sunlight.
Flexible Floor Systems is currently under contract this summer to design and install two playground projects: The Myers Center for Special Children, in Greenville, S.C. and also a new child care facility called Park Place Children’s Center, in Simpsonville, S.C.
