June 2017

98 BUILD / June 2017 , The Interior of Your Dreams White River™, selected as ‘Ones toWatch’, is the leader in the design andmanufacture of embellished hardwoodmouldings and hand carved woodcarvings for the millwork and kitchen and bath industries. We interview the company’s Joan Johnson to learnmore. White River Hardwoods offers over 3,000 embellished profiles including interior hardwood mouldings, corbels, onlays, cabinet parts, mantels and more. These products are in stock for prompt shipment nationally and internationally. They also offer millwork design services for residential and commercial projects, ranging from a detailed mantel to an entire room to a whole millwork package. Joan Johnson starts the interview by putting the company’s highly skilled staff under the microscope, and how they approach new clients plus their reflections on being a part of ‘Ones to Watch in 2017’ in the USA. “The firm’s highly skilled staff has more than 100 years of combined experience in the specification of interior millwork. We will work with you, your architect, or your builder from initial concepts and build-ups to whole house millwork designs and estimating. White River takes pride in our ability to take your ideas and transform them into the interior of your dreams. “Our goal to provide the best possible outcome is to provide a premium experience when working with a new client whether that be a new account, architect, millwork specialist, designer or other trade professionals. To achieve this result, we offer an innovative website, design services, best of class literature and results driven customer service to help our customers be successful in selling and specifying White River products. “We embrace being part of the ‘Ones to Watch in 2017’ in the high-end mouldings and woodcarving segment. We feel that the firm is positioned with our current product line, innovative website and design services to maintain our leadership position in our targeted segments. This position has been validated with multiple awards for our product lines.” Joan then details what sets the company apart from others in the industry and precisely how they create innovative solutions to maintain their success. “What sets White River Hardwoods apart from other manufacturers and makes us the best option for clients is that we are the only company in our segment that offers millwork design services to help homeowners and specifiers achieve the interior of their dreams. You can view the breadth of our designer’s work and client testimonials at wrdesignservices. com. “Trending styles such as contemporary, traditional and old world are easy to accomplish using 3000+ stock items or working, with our design service programme to develop a signature or custom product. White River works with many professional trades and specialises in historical restoration and custom products. “Additionally, White River Hardwoods keeps a pulse on the market and react accordingly with new and innovative products and partnerships that meet the needs of the markets White River Hardwoods serves. Internally, we at the firm work in small creative groups to keep the creative juices going and we make quick decisions and are also very flexible.” Joan then highlights the firm’s most successful project to date and what has been the most important thing they have learned from this, plus what the future has in store for the industry and the company over the next 12 months. “Currently, the firm has six very large interior millwork jobs, where we are involved in all the aspects of design, drawings, bids etc. We have learned people continue to way undervalue the cost of millwork but not the value it brings to their vision of their home, so we ensure that what we do, they love and we stay in contact about budget etc.” “We continue to see a revitalisation in the traditional interior market and will continue to grow our design services and develop new products. White River has national dealers and well known branding for the last 40+ years. We offer the most diverse collection of stock products, full custom capabilities & restoration work while working with dealers, attending tradeshows and driving innovation across all categories. “We do have plans to continue to grow our business. We recently developed about 800 new products and launched two new catalogues and has added new content under ‘Style Made Easy’ on our website, under i-catalogs.” Finally, Joan underlines that being transparent with dealers, specifiers and end customers is a goal the firm has always had. Offering their customers 24/7 access to information from their award-winning website that allows for specification, idea gathering and product sourcing is key. Joan develops this very important point in her own words. “White River offers two websites that are new and support this philosophy. This allows the educated decision maker to gather information and allows our team to develop working relationships to move projects forward. “www.WhiteRiver.com - our new innovated website will launch shortly. This new site will have many new features to enhance search abilities, design gallery, product detail pages, downloads of CAD and PDF and resource catalogues. “www.wrdesignservice.com - this site is new and live. This supports the unique service of interior millwork design and related services. We work directly with the project and the lead, both of whom bring us the details to offer design solutions and sell material in a timely manner.” 1703BU12