When Kenneth and JoAnn Mincey first opened the doors of Mincey Marble on Aug. 15, 1977, they worked out of a 3,800-square-foot white building on Browns Bridge Road.

The original building still exists today in that same location, now hidden behind the warehouse where the company manufactures, finishes and ships their cast marble products and next to the new two-story, 18,000-square-foot office building that opened in May.

In a time of economic uncertainty, when construction projects are few and far between, the Minceys found a way to remain in business for 32 years as of today.

"It's still very much run by the family but it's changed a lot," said Terry Morgan, who works in the marketing department at the company.

For years, Mincey Marble worked with high-end residential clients to outfit bathrooms with marble features, but then switched to a new client base: the hospitality industry.

"We went into the hospitality industry about 10, 15 years ago. Now we do hotels, college dorms, condominiums, vacation condos, things like that," Morgan explained. "He (Kenneth Mincey) made that decision so many years ago because that side of it (residential) is extremely slow, but the hospitality industry is still going."

This change in operations, combined with the timing of the new building's construction, allowed the company to expand without breaking the bank.

"We've been planning it for a couple of years now," said Donna Mincey, Kenneth's daughter, about the new building. "We started it before the economy dived ... it was really good timing."

Though the original building is still on the property, Woody Dobbs, who works in corporate sales, said the new building has some definite advantages.

"We used to have two or three people in each office, and we'd put a desk in each corner of the room," said Dobbs, who's worked for Mincey Marble for almost 30 years. Now everyone has their own office or cubicle to work in, he said.

The first floor of the new building features a showroom and a large conference room with plenty of windows along the walls to let the light in. These rooms give representatives from large chains such as Marriott Hotels and the Hilton Hotels Corporation a chance to see the kinds of marble work the company does, Dobbs said.

The marketing and accounting departments also are found on the first floor, along with a kitchen and plenty of storage space.
Go upstairs and you'll find a workout room for employees, a kitchen with marble countertops, and the inside sales, project management and shipping departments.

The office also has plenty of room to grow. In designing the building, the Minceys wanted to plan for the next 20 years and make sure they could expand without making more additions.

"We probably have too much space, but it's easier to grow into it than to keep adding on," Kenneth Mincey said.