About Us
Our Story
Interior Fusion was founded in 2008 in Largo, Florida by Richard Fendley, retired U.S. Army Master Sergeant, with the idea of ‘fusing’ design and retail together in order to build an office furniture company that had an uncomplicated, fun approach to creating workspace environments designed for teams to create, to imagine and to get work done.
Richard, or Rich as his friends call him, began in the furniture industry working for CORT, an office furniture company, selling rental agreements within the government industry. They had a successful program and knowing this Rich thought it would be great to do the same thing, however selling the product directly to the end user versus renting. So for the first couple years in business Interior Fusion was almost selling exclusively to the government industry.
A few years later, the economy shifted and so did Interior Fusion as we opened up our capabilities to work with not only the government industry, but education, healthcare, and commercial. With more designers and employees, I wanted to take advantage of every team member's talents. Some are great with commercial clients, some are great with government contracts. I want to coach my guys so they can go out there and take care of the clients,” says Rich Fendley.
“We work with a client with one goal in mind and that’s complete happiness and excitement for hiring us. You know anybody can sell furniture, but the person who corrects any roadblocks for clients as they come up, and finds solutions, will keep that client for life,” says Rich.
Speaking of clients, a client that Interior Fusion has grown up with over the years is Sunz Insurance, headquartered in Bradenton, Florida. Rich shared that “We started out very small with Sunz where they had less than 20 people. I think I sold them two chairs. Seeing their growth has been awesome and we are lucky enough to be their go-to company to design floor plans and sell furniture to this entire time. Currently, they are in a 6-story building and they're still growing.”
Business has been going great for Interior Fusion, with the team growing and in 2019 Rich decided it was time to expand the Interior Fusion footprint from the Tampa Bay area into North Florida. At the end of 2019 Interior Fusion’s Rich was introduced to another military veteran and fellow commercial office furniture salesperson Steve Jacobs, by mutual friend and manufacturer’s representative Steve Lyons. Steve had just run into an unexpected situation where the company he had worked for over several decades, Florida Office Interiors, shut down and dissolved without warning, which left Mr. Jacobs and his colleagues in the dark from their sudden change in employment and curious as to what their next move would be. With Mr. Lyons being aware that Mr. Fendley was eager to expand and Mr. Jacobs had this open book of business, the idea to partner up came into play.
Things moved very quickly, so just a couple of days from this exit and after a brainstorming session with the remaining employees (Patrick and Dawn) the decision for Mr. Jacobs to open up this new company became apparent that it needed to happen quickly in order to save the staff’s jobs along with saving a handful of customers’ open orders that had put 50% down payments (with the now dissolved Florida Office Interiors) on large orders of office furniture.
Time was of the essence, so within 3 weeks, they opened up the North Florida location of Interior Fusion. This location in Jacksonville, owned by Steve and Rich is located within the same building where Florida Office Interiors once occupied, which made it easier to help out the clients with open orders, where they had already put deposits down.
“We didn't miss a beat, kept the current clients in-tact. We lost money right out of the gates on clients that had put deposits down with the previous company, however we still took care of them. To help soften the blow, we worked hard on getting some of our manufacturer's to discount some of the purchase orders. They all came through for us, ” says Steve Jacobs.
“The biggest challenge was making sure the clients who were left hanging after the quick exit of Florida Office Interiors understood we weren’t going anywhere, just re-branding the name along with making the buying process even easier. The easiest process for me was turning a lot of my duties over to Dawn and Tracie knowing they had my best interest in mind,” says Steve Jacobs.
Nearly a year later Rich and Steve plan to open up Interior Fusion’s third location in Melbourne, Florida with doors opening in early 2021.
“Not that long ago, I was working in the company by myself and was determined to take the leap one day to hire professionals to take Interior Fusion to the next level. Little did I realize, Interior Fusion would grow like a wildfire! I love our team. Now, we are making memories everyday and I will cherish them all,” says Rich Fendley.