The Best Seats
In The House

Safety is paramount in athletic and educational facilities, as more and more products on the market today are built to keep participants and spectators safe.  Traditionally speaking, most would pigeonhole our organization as one that can often be found designing and hanging both permanent and removable wall padding in gymnasiums across Canada, the United States and the rest of the world.

While we certainly do take on many wall padding jobs fit for schools, colleges, and athletic facilities, we are home to a massive custom padding department that has expanded exponentially over the past number of years, serving more and more niche markets.

Comprising of four divisions, one of our more recent projects had us working closely with key stakeholders from the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in conjunction with our esteemed colleagues at Tri-State Folding Partitions.

The 135-year-old educational institution’s divisions are made up of the Ethical Culture, Fieldston Lower, Fieldston Middle and Fieldston Upper divisions spread across two distinct campuses.  The midtown Manhattan campus is the home of the Ethical Culture program which helps students develop a level of understanding across multiple perspectives, developing imagination and fostering habits such as justice, fairness and empathy.

In nearby Bronx, New York, lies the 18-acre campus that is home to the remaining three divisions of the academic organization.  Here, the Fieldston Lower program fosters students from Pre-K to 5^th grade, the Fieldston Middle offers programming for middle school-aged students and is completed with the high school curriculum of Fieldston Upper.

Our custom padding department may very well be one of our more far-reaching departments within our company.  Aside from the traditional athletic applications we have been known for over 35 years, our padding product selection and capabilities go far beyond that.

While we still provide custom padding for gym walls, columns, stages and rinks, our out-of-the-box thinking and training systems have allowed us to enter a variety of other markets. 

One such area of development from which we have experienced tremendous growth is from within the animal care and transportation sector.  As many us can relate, animals big and small mean a great deal to those of us who care for them as pets, in a commercial environment or as a hobby.  We recently launched our line of padding solutions, each custom designed for veterinary practices and applications containing solutions for animals both big and small.

While generally left for our padding department professionals, many of our customers and end users actually opt to perform their own custom cut-outs on their newly-ordered wall padding.  In the event of forgotten electrical switches, altering existing padding is a very viable option for many and not terribly difficult to undertake.

The name of the game is patience.  As with any custom work, slow and steady typically wins the race and in this case, saves you from having to order additional pads or replacement vinyl for improperly cut holes.   As many contractors will tell you, measure twice, cut once. 

Once again, we were hard at work at the prestigious Julia Dyckman ANDRUS Center in Yonkers, New York.  Earlier in the fall, we were involved in padding two other rooms located in the facility with the help of our partners at Tri-State Folding Partitions.

In that project, our team designed a complete padding solution for a small support room in the facility that had to accommodate an existing playhouse and structure previously installed in the room.

With that project in the rear view, our team once again got to work for ANDRUS, this time on a much larger sensory room.  These rooms are used to create an environment completely removed from outside distractions and come complete with audio and visual aids, promoting extreme relaxation.

With the rise of both personal fitness and the popularity of shows such as American Ninja Warrior, more and more people are getting active and challenging themselves in ways they might not have thought possible.  In additional to grueling endurance, participants of this type of exercise are strong, fast and rely on quick decisions.

As they are faced with numerous challenges, participants often race through a series of obstacles on a course, and the fastest time usually wins. 

Once again we found ourselves in the state of New York for one of our recent projects.  Located in Yonkers, The Julia Dyckman Andrus Center or ANDRUS is a private, non-profit organization that specializes in teaching children and families the skills to express and cope with strong emotions.  Providing childcare, home visiting, mental health services, residential treatments, and special education programs, ANDRUS aims to be a national leader in shaping policies and practices that give children and families the skills required to overcome challenges and adversity.

In the construction phase of their new facility, key stakeholders within the organization reached out to us in an attempt to secure a custom wall padding solution for a pair of rooms inside the facility.  As with any complete wall padding project, the nature of the project requires an on-site visit to really understand the complexities of the rooms and prospective padding.

With Labour Day weekend in our rear-view, we have now passed the unofficial end of summer.  While summer does not technically end for another couple of weeks, and as kids head back to school and we get on with our regular routines, now is a great time to plan ahead for the coming winter months.

Up here in Canada and in many places in the United States, winter sports such as hockey, ringette, figure skating, speed skating and skiing are popular pastimes as temperatures begin to drop.  With that in mind, many rink owners and operators are busy planning their busy season, ensuring their facility and equipment is ready to roll when the snow begins to fly.

Sure, we do a lot of work in the athletic and sports industry.  Our company name and tagline firmly reflects it.

While we do handle a great deal of projects in the athletic industry varying from municipalities, colleges, universities to private athletic institutions, our products can be found in more places than most might think. As we continue to establish our growing brand and reputation, we are constantly moving the needle on the expansion of our stellar product line.  As our selection and capabilities grow, not only are we able to serve more of our traditional customers, we are able to expand our offerings into new industries and sectors.

With that in mind, here are five areas in which we operate our business that many of our customers might be surprised to hear us being involved in.