Renew Lab Partners adds PTL to the stable

In late 2023, Renew Lab Partners, an investment firm headquartered in Sandy Springs, Ga., acquired Dalton-based Professional Testing Laboratory (PTL), a leading testing company that works with players across the floor covering industry. The acquisition of PTL allows Renew Lab Partners to further develop its testing capabilities for a wider range of products. These include: carpet, underlayment, fibers, fabrics, turf, laminate flooring, ceramic tile, wood, LVT, SPC and other resilient flooring, vacuums, cleaning chemicals and automotive parts.

“With our world-class testing expertise and brand recognition in these flooring-related spaces, we will be focusing even more investments into growing our staff, adding new equipment, rolling out new technology and seeking additional space,” said Jon Peterson, founder and managing partner, Renew Lab Partners, which specializes in testing, inspection, certification and compliance across the manufacturing sector.

With the acquisition, Peterson will also serve as PTL president. “We believe there are opportunities to expand into the retail sector further with new and existing big box retailers, focusing on private-label brand benchmarking, merchant-driven product line review testing across new product categories.”

According to Lee Phillips, PTL’s general manager, the acquisition will help PTL realize its full potential. “Renew Lab Partners, which is in the lab-buying business, saw us as kind of a diamond in the rough,” he told FCNews. “At first, we didn’t know what it would mean for us, but it appears to be moving in a really good direction. The contacts Renew Lab Partners has are focused heavily on the retail end—big boxes like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, etc., so they’ve got really good relationships there. At the same time, the equipment we use here in our facilities for textile testing can also be used in many other industries. Our new owners recognized that and are looking to expand our reach.”

PTL had already garnered significant business just via word of mouth, according to Phillips. The acquisition, he noted, will broaden that exposure measurably. “We’ve never really had a sales force that goes out and visits clients,” he explained. “Our business has just always shown up at the front door because of our location and our expertise. People down here in Dalton know us. With this acquisition we’re going to be more aggressive in publicizing and marketing, making sure that people outside the area know we exist.”

Firms that have worked closely with PTL attest to its reputation, capabilities and know-how. “They’re the No. 1 lab in the industry,” said Lew Migliore, owner and founder of LGM & Associates, also headquartered in Dalton. “But it’s not just flooring; they do testing for the automotive industry, Nike and others. You can go into their facility and at any given time they’ll be testing all kinds of materials. They’ve tested everything from shopping bags to medical equipment. When COVID-19 hit, PTL was testing masks and personal protective gear. They’ve even worked with Boeing in testing materials for the aircraft industry.”

When it comes to flooring-specific testing applications, PTL’s experience is well documented. In fact, the lab has worked alongside Migliore’s company on countless mediation/arbitration cases—especially on large commercial projects—where culpability in product/installation failures needed to be ascertained. “In several cases where we’ve worked together, there have been times where we had to actually create tests in the lab because those tests didn’t exist before,” Migliore explained. “For example, we did some testing for new products like bio-based polyurethane flooring, which I’m seeing more of these days. But when you look at the spec from the manufacturer, it says, ‘There’s no test for this.’ Besides, ASTM tests take forever, so we have to try to replicate in the lab what’s happening out in the field.”

In that respect, LGM & Associates is kind of an extension of PTL—and vice versa. “We have capabilities that no one else has,” Migliore said, noting that the two firms operate separately from a fiduciary standpoint.

Emphasis on diversification

Under the auspices of the new ownership company, PTL expects to not only branch out into different end-use categories but also into sub-categories within a particular market segment. Take, for example, the ever-evolving hard surface flooring market with all the various iterations of core materials and constructions.

“We’re never scared to look at new things,” Phillips stated. “Whether it’s a piece of metal versus a piece of carpet or a piece of plastic—some of the testing methodologies are similar. There’s a high level of care that needs to be taken; there’s a tediousness to it. But that’s what we specialize in—testing.”

Those capabilities will certainly be “tested” (pardon the pun) given the rate at which new products/categories are being launched today—especially new hard surface flooring materials—and their respective performance claims. For example, Phillips, who was around when laminate first hit the U.S. market nearly 30 years ago, remembers all the hoopla surrounding that category and its highly touted “bulletproof” attributes. The industry is seeing the same thing today, but with different products like rigid cores and hybrid materials.

To that end, PTL is looking to take a more proactive approach in working with the manufacturing and retail communities in ensuring product performance attributes are properly verified and marketed accordingly. “Our job as a lab is to provide manufacturers and retailers with unbiased scientific information obtained from our testing procedures—not to provide recommendations on what products to bring to market,” Phillips said. “What they do with the results is their business decision.”