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Doc Wright has seen it all in his three decades running a business.
Wright owns and operates Wright’s Floor covering and Paint, located on West Park Avenue in Houma. This year, the company is marking 30 years since Wright opened up shop in 1987.
Wright left his job working in the paint and flooring departments of his family’s lumber yard during the last major oil bust. With limited opportunity due to a local economy hamstrung by weak oil prices, he used the knowledge he gained from working in the family business to branch out and open up his own paint shop in a tiny former gas station on Lafayette Street in downtown Houma.
One year later, Wright started selling flooring in his shop.
“’87 was right when the oilfield – it was slow,” Wright said. “Basically, I got in the business because when I left the lumber yard I couldn’t find a job, you know?”
After three decades and another move before settling at his current storefront since 2000, Wright has seen just about everything in the market. His business has grown from two people on staff to five working at the store while five teams install floors for customers throughout the area. He said he is fortunate to have built the current building during a boom time, enabling him to get large costs out of the way and stay
lean in downtimes such as the current market.
“With the housing market, that’s what we’re involved with. It goes up and down, and right now we’re at a low, but it’s going to come back,” Wright said.
Wright said while the paint industry has stayed relatively static, the flooring business has changed dramatically over his 30 years in business. Customers that once wanted carpet or vinyl for their floors now want wood or ceramic. Wright said the change in home styles and sizes has made for a heavier workload for his installation teams. With
carpet and vinyl, a team could finish work on a house in one day. Today’s larger houses, with wood and ceramic and many featuring custom tile showers, can take an installation team up to two weeks to finish, according to Wright.
Wright said installers who can handle such jobs is one of the hardest parts of running his business. He noted a dearth of younger people willing to perform the hard, physical labor floor installation requires, saying the youngest installer he has is about 40 years old. Wright said both social skills and the ability to show up for jobs are integral to an installer’s quality.
“We’re always working in a customer’s house, so you have to be a people person, you have to get along with customers. Being dependable is the biggest thing in this world,” Wright said.
Wright said the business is still constantly changing, and he has to go to multiple training sessions per year to stay up-to date on the newest products on the market. He pointed to his and his staff ’s experience and their dedication to continuing to learn as keys to the store’s ability to continue to bring in customers.
“I guess [people come to Wright’s] for the knowledge, for the information on the products. Basically, you come in here, we can actually talk you through a job. 30 years, you’ve seen almost every situation,” Wright said. •
