AmCoat’s New Owners Look to Expand Rhino Shield Dealer Network

Last May, AmCoat Industries — longtime provider of high-performance wall, floor and roof coat-ings — was acquired by One In A Row Ventures, LLC. The newly named AmCoat Industrial, LLC will continue to manufacture its popular ultra-performance Rhino Shield and Floor Shield products.

AmCoat’s long-time CEO, Terence Andre, said he and his business partner decided to sell the 21-year-old business when his partner was ready to retire. As part of the asset acquisition, the entire management team stayed on, providing continuity of knowledge and customer relationships, and deep experience with their products.

Andre said the company is setting its sights on further expanding its Rhino Shield dealer network.

“The infusion of capital has allowed us to aggressively expand our footprint by recruiting new dealers in areas we’d like to serve,” said Andre. “Our Rhino Shield dealers come to us from many different businesses — we’re searching for the brightest and the best. And when prospective deal-ers learn about our proven formula for success, great margins, high satisfaction from customers, and a best-in-class product, it just makes sense for them to take this next step in their business journey.

“We’re targeting entrepreneurs who want to become a part of a growing national team that’s sup-ported with training and all the tools needed for success,” said Andre. “And many prospective dealers are looking for a high-quality product from a company with an ethical, values-driven cul-ture — and that’s one of things that attracts them to Rhino Shield.”

One In A Row Ventures is a private equity investment company that saw an opportunity to take AmCoat’s brands Rhino Shield and Floor Shield to the next level. Led by combat-wounded veter-an and entrepreneur Jason Crawford, One In A Row is investing heavily in rebranding Rhino Shield and Floor Shield as well as building a much larger customer and dealer support organiza-tion. In addition, the company is investing in new product development and new technology for its coating systems.

Crawford said when he studied the opportunity to purchase AmCoat, he discovered it met One In A Row’s criteria for companies they are looking to acquire.

“We’re wanting to find companies headquartered from Mobile to Panama City that are owner-managed and where the owner is looking for more than just a sale,” said Craw-ford. “These are owners who are looking for someone to take the legacy they’ve built to the next level— an organi-zation who will take care of their employees and customers.”

One of the things that appealed to Crawford was the fact that AmCoat has been developing, modi-fying and improving their products over the last 20 years.

“The quality of the products and the fact that Rhino Shield has a national dealership net-work is very attractive,” said Crawford. “But what really sold me was the people. There’s a lot of experi-ence within the team and a lot of room for growth. The leadership team is very focused and I’m very impressed with their values-driven approach. Many times in the past, they have forgone growth to do the right thing — and that’s admirable. It’s no coincidence that one of our own foun-dational pillars is to create a purpose-driven company that lives by its values.”

Crawford’s first focus is to support Rhino Shield’s existing dealer network and they‘re doing that by investing in product development and improvement.

“Everyone knows quality drives reliability and performance,” said Crawford. “Earlier this year at our national dealer meeting, we rolled out latest product improvements. We invited our dealers from across the country to Pensacola Beach to show off our product differentiations and the testing results of our latest formulation. We have some pretty impressive results— improvements in elon-gation, tensile strength, permanence and adhesion.

“The second area of laser focus is our dealers. We asked our dealers how we could im-prove and then really listened. That feedback led to us strengthening our dealer support organization, starting a rebranding campaign, and producing more materials for their dealerships — just for starters.”

AmCoat anticipates greatly expanding it Rhino Shield dealer distribution network and doubling its Floor Shield dealer distribution network in the next one to two years. For Rhino Shield, AmCoat is setting its sights on Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City, New York City, Omaha, Buffalo, Rochester, Los Angeles, Boise, Balti-more and Richmond.