There are many questions a business asks itself when it dares to step foot into an industry and market that is outside of the typical wheelhouse. This is what Johns Manville (JM) mulled over with its tile backer board product line.
In 2014, JM took a product developed in partnership in 2006, a ½” thick polyiso foam board, and placed its second foot into the marketplace with a brand called GoBoard®. Win, lose, or draw, JM all went in. And now it’s sweeping across North America.
You can read about our extensive history on the JM website, but this is a quick overview of the trajectory of the company.
Company history
Johns Manville got its start in 1858 by Henry Ward Johns, who created the company’s first roofing shingles in his New York basement. Johns’ business grew rapidly and earned its first asbestos patent in 1868.
In 1886, Charles B. Manville and his sons established the Manville Covering Company, later becoming sales agents for Johns’ products. The two companies merged 15 years later to form Johns-Manville (JM), expanding into insulation, packaging, brake linings, and asbestos-based products. By 1927, JM’s sales reached $45 million, and it went public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Over the following decades, JM thrived through major historical challenges and ultimately confronted the rise and fall of the “miracle mineral” asbestos, shaping a lasting commitment to health and safety. In 2001, JM became a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, strengthening its financial footing. By its 160th anniversary in 2018, JM remained focused on innovative solutions to improve energy efficiency, indoor air quality, and comfort.
Development for the future
At JM’s state-of-the-art research and development facility in Littleton, Colo., our engineers and building scientists are continually building on our leadership position in the sustainable building products waterproof characteristics. Like Henry Ward Johns in 1858, development started with the simple question, “How can we solve a problem with this idea?”
The “gateway board”
Cement board has long been the industry standard for tile applications. However, it is heavy, dusty, and not inherently waterproof. GoBoard is ultra-lightweight, with a 3’x5’ ½” board weighing 0.50 lbs. per square foot. Something as simple as dropping the weight of the product and highlighting the resulting benefits can shift an entire industry to adopt more innovative building products—and fuel product growth in an industry that is reporting contractions in ceramic tile sales.
Some GoBoard team members report that GoBoard is being hailed as “the gateway board.” Certainly, this can be an allusion to Johns Manville’s ingenuity in positively impacting the market as a whole, simply by entering this space with a high-performing product at an appetizing price. What we believe is meant by the gateway statement is that our competitors are also enjoying the industry shift to foam boards, and they are riding GoBoard’s wake. Have we solved a problem for tile contractors? Yes, we have.
Crucial contractor relationships
At Johns Manville, we have a tagline: “We Are JM.” We have a developed culture that puts our customers first. Our customers aren’t only the distributors. We truly focus on the end user when we develop or improve a product. Price is how we help our distributors, but high performance and problem solving is how we serve the end users who are out there buying our products every day.
Developing relationships with contractors is a very important piece of what we call “The JM Experience.” Inspired by Portland tile contractor Jason McDaniel—an early adopter of GoBoard—we added “We Are Tile” as a variation of our tagline.
Our core values, ever-present in everything we do at Johns Manville, are People, Passion, Perform, and Protect. Contractor feedback is key to Paradis’ goal of developing the best, highest-performing tile backer board in the market. In addition to spending a lot of time in the laboratory and in the manufacturing plants, Paradis haunts customer events and training sessions, where he listens to what everyday installers have to say about what works and what doesn’t work. And then he goes to work, solving their problems.
Want to know more about our contractor partners? Visit our YouTube channel and view our contractor spotlight video series that highlights them. They call us, they email us, they message us, they visit us at tradeshows, and they are the most essential part of this brand story, so we want to also tell their individual stories.
Collaborative connections: contractors and JM
Here are two such examples of contractors and how they’ve connected with JM, influencing product development and incorporating GoBoard into their day-to-day operations.
Brandt Garrison of Garrison Tile & Renovation in Burley, Idaho—another early adopter of GoBoard Tile Backer—was looking for a high-performing yet economical foam tile backer board solution. Having already made the switch from cement board, Garrison reached out to Johns Manville to better understand the product from a technical perspective. He also wanted to know about available solutions for dry packed mud pans. He was missing a topical waterproofing membrane from the GoBoard product lineup to install a large walk-in shower for a pool house project in November/ December of 2023.
With Garrison’s willingness to try out solutions in the field, Paradis went to work again. JM provided the membrane materials for the project, and throughout the installation, we received early feedback indicating that more installers would also find the product offerings to meet or exceed expectations.
Another example of this collaborative approach to product research and development is when JM visited the job site of Ken Ballin in late 2023. Ballin is a tile contractor in New Jersey, specializing in custom scribework for his customers in the beach cities where he operates. Ballin found that 3’x5’ tile backer board panels weren’t the ideal size for him to work with. He was making more cuts than ideal, experiencing some waste following his projects. He also felt that 4’x8’ panels were too large. He was hoping for something in between. He asked us how feasible it would be for Johns Manville to produce a 4’x5’ panel for distribution.
This feedback was crucial for developing the GoBoard 4’x64” panel, which is now available in the marketplace.
