Tile business floored with opportunities.

• Author: Quesnel, Joseph
• Position: Special Report: Timiskaming & Region

A Timiskaming area manufacturer may be expanding within the coming year, requiring it to build a new, larger facility and create up to 35 new jobs in the region.

Ovrx, an Englehart-based maker of insulated sub-floor tiles, has been experiencing tremendous growth over the course of its one-year existence and has expanded its operations into Europe.

"We've tripled our sales from last year," says Clinton Johanson, one of four managing partners with the infant company.

The company produces floor tiles that combine board and Styrofoam, preventing moisture and dampness from entering in through the basement floor, therefore eliminating the need to constantly replace damaged flooring.

"We developed a product where no wood actually touches concrete," Johanson says.

Johanson, a long-time resident of Englehart and industrial designer by trade, developed the idea after he graduated with a diploma in industrial design from London-based Fanshawe College in the early 1990s. Not able to immediately capitalize on his invention, Johanson received backing from three other partners in the Englehart area. With one partner being a millwright and another a cabinetmaker, the group set out to find a market. After designing the product for marketing, the partners designed a pilot plant in Englehart to distribute it. Currently, the partners are employing 15 people from the Timiskaming district in their Englehart-based plant.

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The men are also happy with the fact that they were able to capitalize on homegrown talent for their facility. The manufacturing of the flooring tiles requires skilled, mechanically inclined labourers, something the group says is plentiful in an area where mechanized companies like Grant Forest Products and others have operations.

Since their founding, the company has expanded its operations such that it now has an overseas distributor building a warehouse in...