When Tim Baucom worked at Dupont on its Stainmaster brand nearly three decades ago, he earned the nickname "Shawcom" because of his success in dealing with Shaw Industries, the world's biggest carpet manufacturer.
Shaw ultimately hired the textile engineer in 1992 and on Wednesday the Dalton, Georgia-based floorcovering giant promoted Baucom to company president under Shaw CEO Vance Bell.
Tim BaucomOver the past 27 years, Baucom has held leadership positions across different divisions of Shaw, which is a $6 billion-a-year floorcovering company with 22,000 employees owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Baucom was instrumental in building Shaw's commercial business into the largest and most profitable commercial flooring entity in North America.
"Tim has been an instrumental member of our leadership team since his appointment as executive vice president of our residential group three years ago," Bell said in a statement Wednesday. "Tim will continue to bring a strategic focus, helping Shaw to rapidly anticipate and evolve with the increasing pace of change in our industry."
In an interview Wednesday with Floor Focus magazine, Baucom said Shaw is looking to diversify its products and sources to meet changing market demands even as it seeks to build its brand identity to help distinguish its products in a crowded and changing market.
"Looking out at the market, we always value strength, but in today's market that is changing so fast we also are having to add flexibility and agility to that strength," Baucom said. "We are fully committed to domestic manufacturing and that's something we are very proud of. But we also recognize that the pace of change right now means that we are going to have to keep more lines in the water right now and merge both our make and buy strategies to stay ahead of the rapidly changing landscape of products and ways you get products to market."
Last year, Shaw boosted revenues about 7 percent, or twice the industry average, according to Kemp Harr, publisher of Floor Focus.
Baucom said the traditional differences in floorcovering between residential and commercial brands is lessening as more offices take on a look of homes and more homes are turned into offices.
"Corporate offices want to look more like Starbucks and Starbucks wants to look more like your den," Baucom told Floor Focus. "As the market moves to a different balance between hard and soft surfaces, some of the hard lines between residential and commercial start to blur."
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340