It's funny how some friendships never go away; they just stay in a stand-by mode until your life paths cross again in the future. This is the case of my longtime friendship with Mike Mincemoyer (the owner of STRONGHOLD FLOORS).
Our Friendship
Mike and I met for the first time as Army 2nd Lieutenants in Fort Benning, Georgia. We developed a very good working partnership and friendship doing various jobs over the course of four years. In 1996, I left active duty and moved to southern Pennsylvania to start a new career while Mike stayed down south with his post military career.
Mike and I didn't talk to each other again until finally meeting up in 1998 when he moved back to the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. Even with the gap in time, we carried on conversations as if we talked on a daily basis. As we did before, we lost contact with each other in a very short time as our careers took very different directions.
Epoxy Floor Coatings Rekindle Friendship
It wasn't until this year (2013) that Mike and my paths crossed again very accidentally. My wife and I were in the process of making some major improvements to our 15 year old home. Our final project for the summer was to do something to improve our garage floor which was showing its age (oil stains, paint stains, salt, and battery acid damage). As with most large projects, I did some research online about the garage floor epoxy products available and coatings installation companies providing this service.
During my research, I quickly ruled out the Do-It-Yourself products provided by the big-box stores and online websites for two main reasons. First, although I enjoy home projects, I don't have the skill set to do the professional job I wanted to see for my own garage floor. Second, I've seen garages which had a DIY kit installed on their garage floor and saw how poorly it lasted only after a short period of time. I had no desire to do this same project every couple of years. For these reasons, I decided that a professional garage floor coatings installer was the route to go.
As with most of my Internet searches, I went to Google and searched for epoxy coatings installers serving the York area. I eventually came to StrongholdFloors.com and was impressed with how easy it was to navigate the site. I was able to find the flooring options available for my garage and the picture portfolios showing completed jobs.
While checking the blogs, I came across Concrete Contemplations for Memorial Day 2013 (a since deleted blog post) and given my past military service, the attached picture of the three soldiers caught my eye. I almost laughed out loud when I recognized the middle soldier as Mike and then confirmed it by seeing that he was the author of the blog.
Within the hour, I was on the phone with Mike talking about how funny it was that our paths should cross again after another 15 year gap. After telling Mike that I was in the market for an epoxy coated floor for my garage he invited me to his facility for a tour. During the tour, I was quickly impressed with the products, the installation process, the final look of the floor, and the knowledge that Mike and his team possessed about their profession.
In August, my garage floor was coated by one of the coatings installation teams from the Mechanicsburg facility. The project took only 1.5 days. I was able to watch nearly the entire process from outside the garage.
I was so impressed with the coatings results that I asked Mike if any openings existed in the company. As of this blog posting, I can proudly say that I am a member of the STRONGHOLD FLOORS team.
As the Business Development Manager, it is my goal to provide to as many homeowners, homebuilders, and commercial customers the same high quality and professional epoxy flooring system that I received in my own home. I want to see everyone enjoy their garage floors for many years to come.
