The American dream - an idealistic belief that opportunity and prosperity is attainable to anyone. It's a belief that you can achieve more than your parents, and your child can achieve more than you. It's a national ethos that draws immigrants from around the world.
Some say the dream is dead. Others say it's alive and well. frameless bathtub doors
The First Coast is home to hundreds of business owners, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one who encompasses the American dream more than Bill Cobb.
Cobb started with nothing. He was living in a trailer park on Philips Highway when he noticed the curtains in his mobile home weren't adequate for the home's low features. Inspired, Cobb created a shower door using a screen and vinyl curtain. It was a simple innovation. It was also the start of something huge.
He founded Coastal Shower Doors in 1972. The business initially built and distributed shower enclosures for manufactured housing and recreational vehicle facilities.
It started with three people in a 9,000 square-foot building on Atlantic Boulevard. Today, Cobb's company employs more than 150 people, is partnered with brands like Home Depot, Lowes and Amazon and has distributors throughout Europe. Every Winnebago since the 1980's has a Coastal product, and the company sells to NVR Homebuilders, the fifth largest builder in the country according to current company president, Ray Adams.
"We make shower doors for any place you can imagine a shower door going," Adams said.
Coastal Shower Doors is still headquartered in Jacksonville, just off St. Johns Bluff Road, and the company showcased its products last month when it hosted the November meeting of the First Coast Manufacturers Association. Most of its products go through service contractors, who sell to homebuilders. Coastal also designs and supplies shower doors for global hotel brands like Hilton, Marriot and Hampton Inn.
The company's team of engineers helps design and create new products, looking to keep up with market trends.
"We're fortunate, our head of engineering is very design-forward and very design oriented," Adams said. "We're pretty nimble when it comes to design, we've had to be."
At 45 years old, Coastal Shower Doors has been through the wringer - a stock market crash in 1987, a building recession in the early 1990's, the 2008 housing-market collapse, the digital revolution and a changing logistical landscape.
The company's survival is predicated on its ability to adapt, change and innovate.
The 2008 housing-market collapse was particularly brutal, forcing Coastal to lay off staff, cut salaries and scrape by to survive. When the smoke cleared, Adams and Cobb came up with a new game plan.
"Coming out of the recession, Bill and I met to discuss what we would have done differently going into the recession if we knew it was going to be that bad," Adams said. "The one book of business we felt we needed to attack was big box retail."
Adam's began meeting with big-box retailers to get Coastal products into stores and online. The company organized focus groups and conducted data-driven research to pitch their vision to companies like Lowes and Home Depot. It worked, and today Coastal products are found in Lowes' stores across the country and available on Home Depot's website, as well as Amazon and Wayfair.
"We had zero online sales four years ago, now it's millions of dollars a year," Adams said. "That's probably been the biggest [change] for us."
As for the future, Coastal Shower Doors has grand plans.
The founder's son, Patrick Cobb, head of marketing and product development, noticed a trend in major metropolitan areas. People were taking steel factory windows and repurposing them into room dividers and wine-cellar doors. His wife, also a designer, floated the idea of applying that trend to shower doors. Patrick Cobb met with Adams and an engineer the next morning, and by mid-afternoon, the company had the basic concept done for its latest innovation - the Gridscape Series.
"I've been doing this for 35 years now, and I've never seen anything that people get more excited for than this product," Adams said.
Traditionally, the shower door was an afterthought, designed with clear glass and small hinges to go unnoticed in the room. The Gridscape bucks traditional design by becoming the bathroom's focal point. The individual panes stand out next to smoke-grey glass, intending to give a "luxe urban and modern vibe."
Design trends and digital sales aren't the only things Adams monitors.
With rapid advancements in travel technology and an ever-globalizing world, Adams is reevaluating the current model of expansion through distribution channels. The logistics of moving product from place to place is a space he thinks could soon be outdated.
As for Bill Cobb, he spends most days at his lake house in Georgia, though he still owns a home in Jacksonville. At 80 years old, Cobb has taken a step back from the day-to-day operations, but his company is still growing under his son's leadership, his president and his team.
"Bill is the American dream come true," Adams said.
aluminum cabinets for sprinter van Coastal Shower Doors have been featured in The New York Times, Houzz, This Old House and more. Learn more at CoastalShowerDoors.com.