Happy Holidays from the Life Floor Team!

2023 has been a year of innovation and fun. From new partnerships to thrilling projects across the world, we look forward to 2024 with excitement. I want to take this opportunity to thank you personally for being part of the Life Floor story, and for your commitment to making the aquatics industry even more inviting for people of all ages and abilities.

This year, our team celebrated the following top highlights:

• 2023 started on a tropical note with a team cruise in the Caribbean for our January planning meetings. We were able to visit several Life Floor installations: Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, Perfect Day at CocoCay, and Baha Bay at Baha Mar. 

• We celebrated our 2022 Make a SPLASH! Grant Contest winner at the grand re-opening of Rotary Splash Island at Sammy Haggard Park in Danielsville, Georgia this Summer.

• For the first time ever, we expanded the 4th annual Make a SPLASH! Grant Contest co-hosted by Inside Edge Safety Surfaces, announcing two facilities as winners. The Need-Based Award was granted to John Anderson Splash Pad in Grandview, MO. The Inclusive Design Award was granted to Morgan’s Wonderland, Will’s Hang 10 Harbor in San Antonio, Texas. This Grant Contest enables us to give back to deserving communities in need of safety surfacing.

• A new Matching Funds Grant Program launched with a rolling application cycle available for facilities to enter throughout the year.

• We launched a new product line, Murals. These innovative tiles were a finalist for IAAPA’s Brass Ring Awards in the category for Best New Product under $2 Million.

• Our team received four Leading Edge awards from WWA for:

  • Studio City Waterpark - Macau, China

  • Island Waterpark at Showboat - Atlantic City, NJ, USA

  • Pirate’s Cove Aquapark - MSC Cruise

  • Camp Barnabas - Purdy, MO, USA

• Life Floor was named as the Floor Covering Supplier by Aquatics International for three Dream Design Award-winning facilities in 2023 at:

  • Margaritaville Beach Resort Fins Up Waterpark - Nassau, The Bahamas

  • University of Nebraska Medical Center Munroe-Meyer Institute - Omaha, NE, USA

  • Studio City Waterpark - Macau, China

• We established a new partnership with STS to expand our global reach into Saudi Arabia.

• Members of our team led and engaged in educational speaking sessions at IAAPA, NRPA, URPA, AOAP, WAHC, USA Swimming, NYSRPS, PRPS, and FRPA trade shows with topics surrounding design, safety, establishing best practices, and accessibility.

• NSF International finalized a new pool perimeters standard for safety surfacing as part of NSF/ANSI/CAN 50. The updated standard will be live in early 2024.

• Numerous partners represented Life Floor in their trade show booths this year including: Inside Edge Safety Surfaces, Martin Aquatic Design and Engineering, Waterplay, WhiteWater, Paddock, Daldorado, Aquatic Design Group, Rain Drop Products, Prairie Surfaces, Raymond Sport, Westport Pools, and AquaShield Products. Thank you to all for recommending our safety surfacing.

• We published our new Lookbook Volume 10 this fall.

• The list of countries featuring Life Floor grew including our first installations in Russia, Croatia, Egypt, Anguilla, and the Czech Republic.

• We officially welcomed three new hires onto our team:

  • Michelle Henderson - Senior Vice President, Sales

  • Blake Brant - Installation Specialist

  • Justin “Mac” McLaughlin - Process Engineer

• We manufactured over 175,000  Life Floor tiles across all facilities in 2023. (700,000 sq ft/65,032 sqm)

As we move into the new year, keep an eye out for milestone projects, new partnerships, and product updates!

Thank you to all of our vendors, partners, and customers for working alongside us in 2023. We look forward to collaborating with you again next year as we further our mission to enhance safety, design, and accessibility for all people at aquatic facilities around the world.

Warmly,
Jonathan Keller | CEO of Life Floor

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This year we hosted an ugly sweater competition! Some members of our team dressed up to show their holiday spirit and we just had to share them!

Life Floor in the Caribbean

Tired of the snowy Minnesota winter, the Life Floor team kicked off annual planning meetings in the Caribbean at the start of the year. We were excited to celebrate a successful 2022 as we sailed to two islands in the Bahamas featuring award-winning Life Floor installations. As an added bonus, our team was able to observe Life Floor onboard the ship.

We invite you to escape to the tropics as you explore our team's adventures on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas as well as our excursions to Perfect Day at CocoCay and Baha Bay at Baha Mar on Nassau!

One of the reasons why we chose this ship for our planning meetings is because it features Life Floor in the Adventure Ocean kids area. Several cruise lines have chosen our Slate tiles as their preferred surfacing for indoor kids play spaces given its cushioning, cleanability, and IMO certification.

Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas also features a FlowRider that uses Life Floor for slip-resistance along the ramps. Our first day on board the ship was the best opportunity to see this area in action since the following days were filled with meetings, excursions, and fun with team members at sea.

On our second day, the ship docked at Perfect Day at CocoCay, Royal Caribbean’s private island. Immediately after the team got onto the island, we were greeted by our themed installation at Captain Jill's Galleon. 

We met with the operators of the island who gave us a tour that eventually led to another installation of ours, Splashaway Bay. This particular splash pad has won Aquatics International's Dream Design award. This project was designed in collaboration with Martin Aquatic. 

For our day at sea, most of the team's time was spent in annual planning meetings. Afterwards and over the course of the sailing, the group thoroughly enjoyed the amenities on board the ship as well as the ability to spend quality time together. 

Our final day was spent at Nassau, where the team was able to visit and tour Baha Bay at Baha Mar. This waterpark has won Aquatics International's Dream Design award as well as a Leading Edge award from WWA. Life Floor is installed in four different areas around the property.

At Stingray Cove, Aqua and Aviator swirls surface a splash pad featuring a giant play structure. 

At Turtle Beach, Life Floor surfaces the walls, steps, floor, and landing pads of the main pool as well as an adjacent splash pad and zero depth entry pool. 

Hexagon Life Floor tiles can also be found along the ramps of the waterpark's FlowCurl. 

The most unexpected application of Life Floor we got to see was in the flamingo pool! Concrete is too abrasive for flamingo feet and can cause a condition called Bumblefoot. Thankfully, Life Floor's soft tiles provide the perfect solution. 

Overall, Life Floor’s time spent in the Caribbean provided us with a productive planning week filled with team bonding, opportunities to see award-winning projects, and time spent with operators at all of these beautiful tropical locations.

Inspired by the Life Floor applications above? Our team would love to learn more about your project and walk you through our complimentary design process. Contact our team today to start the conversation.

Happy Holidays from the Life Floor Team!

2022 has been a year of growth and innovation for our team. From collaboration on new and exciting partnerships to developing soon-to-be-released announcements, we’re looking forward to 2023 with enthusiasm. I want to take this opportunity to thank you personally for being part of the Life Floor story and for your commitment to making aquatics a space for people of all ages and abilities to enjoy.

This year, our team celebrated the following top highlights:

• We celebrated our 2021 Make a SPLASH! Grant Contest Winner at the grand re-opening of Wells Park Splash Pad in Albuquerque, New Mexico this Summer.

• We announced Splash Island at Sammy Haggard Park in Danielsville, Georgia as the winner of the 3rd annual Make a SPLASH! Grant Contest co-hosted by our Preferred Installation Partner, Inside Edge Safety Surfaces. This Grant Contest enables us to give back to deserving communities in need of safety surfacing.

• We announced a new partnership with Waterplay by MAKR. 

• We received a Leading Edge award from WWA for Aqua Nick at Nickelodeon Riviera Maya. Baha Bay at Baha Mar also received a Leading Edge Award.

• Life Floor was named as the Floor Covering Supplier by Aquatics International for two Dream Design Award-winning waterparks in 2022 at Baha Bay at Baha Mar and Atlantis Dubai Aquaventure.

• We led educational speaking sessions at WWA, NRPA, and GRPA trade shows with topics including design, safety, and accessibility.

• Numerous partners represented Life Floor in their trade show booths this year including: Inside Edge Safety Surfaces, Martin Aquatic Design and Engineering, Waterplay, WhiteWater, Paddock, Daldorado, Aquatic Design Group, Rain Drop Products, and Prairie Surfaces. Thank you to all for recommending our safety surfacing. 

• We released 120 new standard Inlay shapes to significantly expand our Inlay Library and provide new theming and design possibilities.

• We launched our new Designed for Play Brochure and Lookbook Volume 9.

• The list of countries featuring Life Floor grew including our first installations in Anguilla, Czech Republic, Egypt, Grand Cayman, Qatar, and Switzerland.

• We were recognized by the USDA this year following our growth and development after receiving two of their grants in 2015. These funds enabled our company to transition manufacturing from Vietnam to South Dakota, allowing us to proudly state that Life Floor is Made in the USA for western hemisphere projects. 

• We collaborated with Ka’ana Wave Co. and Daldorado on Ka’ana’s first pop-up surf park in Britannia Beach, BC, Canada.

• We saw our Cruise line customers return to business in earnest which saw us doing work with 7 different brands in 2022.

• We manufactured over 150,000 Life Floor tiles (600,000 sq ft/55,740 sq m) between South Dakota and China!

We have some exciting news to come in 2023. Keep an eye out for milestone projects, new partnerships, and product updates!

Thank you again to all of our vendors, partners, and clients for working alongside us in 2022. We look forward to partnering with you next year as we further our mission to make aquatic facilities safer, more beautiful, and more accessible for all people.

Warmly,

Jonathan Keller | CEO of Life Floor

National Park and Recreation Month: Featured Installations

Happy National Park and Recreation Month! We’d like to extend a huge thank you to our clients working in Parks and Recreation departments for your continued work on making our communities beautiful, fun, and safe. To celebrate, we’re featuring four municipal aquatic facilities where we’ve installed Life Floor across the country. If you happen to live nearby one of these, be sure to visit when you can!

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Tropics Indoor Waterpark + Bamboo Bay - Shoreview Community Center, Shoreview, MN

The city of Shoreview renovated the existing Indoor Tropics Waterpark pool deck in late 2018. They chose Life Floor in sandy shades and a natural Slate texture to reflect the tropical beachside theme of the park. Guests and staff immediately recognized the additional comfort and safety Life Floor provided. Shortly after, the city moved forward with the decision to add Life Floor to the locker rooms. “Adding Life Floor to the locker rooms was something a lot of people noticed right away: ‘Oh great, you got rid of the slippery floor!’” Buck noted once Life Floor had been installed.

The build-out for Bamboo Bay, the multi-level spray structure expansion, was completed a few months after in early 2019. The city again chose Life Floor to cover the entire surrounding deck of the structure and the nearby locker rooms. 

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Pleasant Glade Pool Deck and Parr Park Splash Pad - Grapevine, TX

“We have really enjoyed Life Floor. It has definitely made our deck that used to be so hot much better to walk on. It’s great.”

— Hunter Hardeman, Aquatic Supervisor of Grapevine

The City of Grapevine, TX provides an impressive aquatic program to the surrounding community with both indoor and outdoor facilities to play, exercise, and compete. With an average summer temperature of 96 degrees, the city experiences extremely hot concrete decks that can hit 140 degrees in the afternoon. Grapevine chose Life Floor because of the tile’s unique ability to dissipate heat underfoot. Unlike concrete, Life Floor tiles do not absorb heat, which is why the tiles feel comfortable to walk on in the summer sun. The city also installed Life Floor in the locker room areas to help reduce slip and fall injuries.

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Trailhead Park Splash Pad - Winter Haven, FL

The City of Winter Haven, FL built the splash pad at Trailhead Park in 2016. The city opened it originally with a concrete finish for the surface and they’ve resurfaced it about 3-4 times with different products. After experiencing some slip and fall incidents, they tried a rubberized paint with a sand-like substrate in it; however, injuries were still problematic. The committee at Winter Haven ultimately opted for Life Floor, pleased with the fact that Life Floor met all of the requirements they needed to solve while also being certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 50.

“Not only does it look awesome but it meets many criteria of fall and slip resistance and we’ve gotten nothing but great feedback from the product and that we did something to address our slip and fall issues.”

— Andy Palmer, City of Winter Haven Parks Planning and Strategic Initiatives Manager

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Westfield Memorial Pool Complex - Westfield, NJ

“We haven’t had a single major incident of people getting hurt on Life Floor, and it’s worth the peace of mind that the kids are safe.”

— Heather Re, Aquatics Supervisor Westfield Memorial Pool

After 5 years of enjoying Life Floor, Westfield Memorial Pool decided to redesign their splash pad to create a centerpiece attraction at their aquatic facility. The city’s main objectives were to refresh the space as a way to drive membership sign-ups and to create a beautiful environment where families could share memories on social media. By collaborating with the Life Floor Studio team, the Westfield splash pad now features a vibrant, unique octopus design that guides kids through and around splash features adjacent to the facility’s zero-depth leisure pool. 

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Interested in adding Life Floor’s safety surfacing to an aquatic facility at your park? Feel free to contact us!

The Adventures of Detective Lyle F. Floor: The Last Fall

It’s been a strange spring so far, with most of our favorite outdoor activities put on hold, cancelled, or otherwise changed to create safer spaces for the world at large. So it only makes sense as we spend time in the Great Indoors that we at Life Floor decided it was time to work on our Great American Injury Mystery Novel (an injury mystery is like a murder mystery except far less grim).

We’re flooring experts, not novelists, but we think we may have something here...

Our Cast of Criminals:

The Slippery Sir Amic, tiling on problems and never quite knowing what people are going on a-grout.

The Poor Ian Place, always falling apart at the last minute, a softer touch than most to be sure, but can’t handle the heat.

The abrasive con, Crete, has fallen on hard times. She’s a slippery character and tends to let her experiences stain her perspective, and it always seems like she’s everywhere.

Excerpts From Our Upcoming Mystery Novel

Something always happens after days like these. Folks go out into this whole soaked world and think that they can get away with anything. It’s all fun and games until someone, somewhere, slips up and takes the fall. 

That’s where a guy like me comes in. See, I’m a Private Investigator getting to the bottom of this city’s grittiest crimes and slipperiest criminals. Folks call me when they want somebody in their corner to help them get a grip in this crazy mixed up town. What can I say? I’m a softy, especially when somebody’s been dealt a tough break. 

After somebody gets hurt, folks like to call me and see if I can get to the bottom of it. I’ve done work all over this city, everything from the top of the tallest stair tower all the way to the full bottom of the slide. It’s dirty work, but a guy like me? I don’t let it get to me. When the world tries to grind me into the pavement, I always get right back up. 

Another day, another injury. Time to get to work.

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The first door I knocked on was one of the folks who seemed to be everywhere in this city. Crete was a con-woman to be sure, abrasive at her best, and able to slide right out from under anyone’s watchful gaze. But she’s been a good source to me before, so I swung by one of her old haunts. 

These days I was starting to see some cracks in her slick armor. She’d fallen on hard times before and again, and she had a habit of letting one or two bad spills stain her for good. Didn’t help she was hanging out with a new crowd. Some team over from across the pond, a lowlife calling himself Sir Amic, if you’d believe it. Seems like he never knew what people were going on a-grout, and boy he made a picture. 

”Look what square the cat dragged in, if we don’t have Lyle F. Floor. What sort of angle are you working at today?” She said, straight to the point like gravel in your shoe. So I did her the same favor and pulled a picture out of my pocket of the crime scene. “Do you know anything about this? Kid took a dive at the aquatic center over at 4th and 9th. Fell for the water in all the wrong ways if you catch my drift.”

She took a look at the photo with her grey eyes - a con like Crete had seen all kinds of things in her day. Bumps, bruises, abrasions like she was fixing to give sandpaper a run for its money. Sure enough she didn’t bat an eye and played hard ball, “Looks like an everyday accident, Detective. I would let this one slip you by, you wouldn’t want your agency to hit a rough patch.”

Now, I’m not the kind of guy who takes a dive for anybody, and anybody who knows me can say I stick to something like glue when I get a lead on it. I took a look at the photo and saw some telltale signs of rubber pellets around the corners. An unintentional calling card from another old rogue. Chances are if he’s leaving a mess, he’s down on his luck again. Looks like poor Ian Place is probably up to his old tricks again and falling apart on the job. I’d have to take a turn around the city and see where he’d gotten caught up this time. He wasn’t that bad of a guy in the right situations, but when he got in over his head you’d see the breakdown for years.

“I’ll be seeing you around, Crete.” I said. 

“Oh, I’m set on that.” She said, closing the door, “I’m everywhere.”

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This was fun, but we should probably just stick to making safety surfaces for aquatic facilities… Happy April Fool’s Day!