Sold after 89 years: Mullicans’ move expected to create jobs

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Columbia Flooring president David Wootton, center, accepts the keys to McMinnville Manufacturing Co. from Jim Mullican, left, and Bill Mullican on Wednesday. (Amy Satterwhite photo)

The end of an era of family ownership of McMinnville Manufacturing Co. has arrived, as one of the city’s oldest manufacturing plants was sold last week.

The deal became finalized March 31 and was announced Wednesday at the plant, along with the announcement of the new owner’s plans to add more than 100 jobs to the local economy in the next two years.

At the time of sale, the company was owned by Jim, Bill and Mike Mullican, who were the stockholders. Their father, M.T. Mullican, was an owner, president and chairman of the board until 1984.

Bill Mullican said his father was formally with the company since 1946 and the Mullican brothers have operated the hardwood flooring plant for more than 20 years.

Bill and Jim Mullican said the family decided to sell simply because they had no family members interested in acquiring the business, as their children were involved in other careers.

“It’s been either partially owned or fully owned by the Mullicans since 1915,” Bill Mullican said. “We don’t have any children coming up and I was getting old. And we had a good company that we came into touch with that we felt would be good for our employees and for the county. It just happened to be a good stage in our lives.”

Bill and Jim Mullican are being retained as operational managers by the new owners, Columbia Flooring, which is headquartered in Danville, Va. Columbia Flooring is a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia Forest Products and is a leading manufacturer of hardwood and laminate flooring. Columbia Flooring has manufacturing operations in four other states.

Columbia Flooring president David Wootton, present for the announcement, said no one will be losing their jobs as a result of the sale. In fact, he said the company has plans to expand operations by adding another shift of workers and expanding the lumber yard.

“In the next 12 months, we expect to add up to 100 jobs. At the present time, the plant operates on one shift. We plan to have it operating on two shifts,” Wootton said. “That’s phase one. And then with phase two, we’ll be adding some other manufacturing equipment to do some other processes that will probably create up to another 50 jobs.”