Red Dot Enclosures is proud to announce that 2018 marks 30 years of business for the Tampa, Florida-based Golf Car Enclosure manufacturing company.
We could say that Red Dot Enclosures are proudly made in the USA and use the highest quality fabrics, leaving the rest up to your imagination… but there’s more to the story.
Larry and Geneva Carroll established Red Dot Enclosures on February 14, 1988. The owners were grooming their children, Eric and Lisa, to one day take over the family business. However, when their father was killed in a car accident in 1993, both Lisa and Eric were thrust into the management of the small company, along with their mother.
Despite being less than 25 years old, the siblings took over and moved the company forward. Red Dot grew under Lisa’s management — and by 1998, the company had outgrown its rental property. They purchased a 17,000 square-foot building, which had to be expanded by 8,000 square feet the very next year.
Red Dot also invested $150,000 in a special digitized cutter to eliminate the need for hand cutting. This move ensured that all the enclosure designs were digitized and not kept as paper patterns that could be lost in a fire. All of Red Dot’s patterns are digitized by Eric Carroll, the onsite engineer, ensuring an exact cut every time.
As Red Dot continued to grow, they realized they needed additional management to keep things moving forward. In 1999, they hired Eric Schneider (now Lisa’s husband) to manage sales. His experience and knowledge from being a former FedEx® sales rep helped boost the company’s sales. However, because the sales team was now being led by an active sales manager, the company soon found itself in a precarious, although enviable position — they couldn’t make their enclosures fast enough. Lead time grew from 2 weeks to 6–8 weeks during peak season. Red Dot needed to stock more enclosures than ever before, and soon purchased a 25,000 square-foot warehouse to accommodate the growing inventory. Lisa also established a relationship with a manufacturing company in Taiwan to take some of the production burden off the Tampa facility.
Sales continued to increase and the need for more enclosures continued to grow. Lisa knew that in order to provide the best service to the industry and enough enclosures to keep up with demand, she needed more resources. In 2012, the family made the decision to sell to Nivel, who offered the financial resources and the breadth of products that would make the partnership a huge benefit to not only Red Dot, but to golf car dealers as well.
Since then, the Red Dot family has continued to thrive making enclosures under the Nivel umbrella. All of Red Dot’s craftspeople are still in the factory, in Tampa, providing the highest quality enclosures in the industry. Eric Carroll heads up the cutting operations and forecasts the domestic inventory, Eric Schneider still leads the sales team and Lisa continues to manage the product line. The relationships the team has made over the years are as strong as ever, and Eric C., Eric S. and Lisa have cultivated friendships that will last far beyond their time in the industry.
Red Dot is proud to have served the industry for 30 years. They are true innovators and look forward to staying at the top of their game for years to come.
For more information on Red Dot Enclosures, call 800-328-7711 or visit nivelparts.com/red-dot.
