Starnet Commercial Flooring Partnership drives the industry forward with a growing network built around collaboration and real-world innovation
With decades of trusted expertise, Starnet Commercial Flooring Partnership (Starnet), has established itself as a highly influential force in contract flooring. With over 430 locations across the US and Canada, Starnet’s network comprises leading flooring contractors across a diverse scope of sectors, from education to healthcare, hospitality and retail. The organization is actively shaping the standards of modern commercial flooring, supporting complex, mixed-use developments and providing integrated services that help bring entire environments to life.
Company: Wall 2 Wall Commercial Flooring
When Construction Today last sat down with Mark Bischoff, Starnet’s President and Chief Executive Officer, in January 2025, we gained valuable insight into the company’s history, product portfolio, operational structure, and capabilities. Since then, Starnet has continued to grow and flourish. Notably, the company was proud to have recently rebranded to Starnet Commercial Flooring Partnership, championing a fresh identity that both aligns with its current positioning in the market and builds further on its existing legacy. Now, by continuing to drive collaboration and innovation across the industry, the organization is actively evolving its full-service offering to respond to changing market trends and keep its members a step ahead of the curve. This year, we reunite with Mark to take a deep dive into Starnet’s network and uncover the operational advantage it provides to valued members, both now and in the future.
“Starnet continues to evolve its preferred vendor network, primarily based on the needs of commercial real estate architecture and design. The network is, essentially, the fashion industry for the specialty trade contractor; most people think of construction as a functional business, but our members are highly involved in the fashion part of the business, creating these incredible interiors – and that’s constantly evolving,” Mark begins, reflecting on current market trends. “For example, interior systems are now being designed more holistically. It used to be very siloed, where manufacturers would focus on a specific product line, such as carpet, but now, the industry is bundling lots of different elements together. Tile manufacturers, for instance, now offer lots of different accessories, such as aluminum trim, underlayments, mortar, and grout, all under one aggregated brand experience. Because of this evolution, we’re now adding wall, ceiling, flooring, and acoustic products to our portfolio, as well as additional services to complement all those solutions.”
Community commitment
This expansion and evolution of products and integrated solutions remains at the heart of Starnet’s continued evolution. As the scope of interior systems becomes increasingly interconnected, Starnet is supporting its members with new advanced tools to ensure they’re not only equipped with the right products, but also the expertise, operational discipline, and technology to deliver them effectively. One such innovation is the company’s new visualization tool, built in collaboration with Roomvo, which allows its members to preview their products directly in their project environments, complete with true-to-life lighting, texture, and scale.
“For the last few years, we’ve been focused on three main things when it comes to our members: their talent, operational excellence, and technology. As far as technology goes, we’ve recently pioneered a few unique innovations, particularly surrounding visualization, which is one of the major challenges for the design community which uses it to showcase products. We’ve worked hard with our technology partner, Roomvo, to build visualization tools that reflect real life, which we feel will help the industry and clients get excited about interiors in the longer term,” Mark elaborates.
“Additionally, one of the biggest problems in construction is documenting changes in sequencing, specifications, and change orders that occur during the process,” Mark adds. “To combat these challenges, we’ve also worked with Clearstory to make sure that everything is fully integrated all the way up to construction management. It all comes down to our focus on operational excellence.”
This focus sits at the core of Starnet’s DNA. Indeed, its membership network represents a shared commitment to collaboration, proven performance, and a collective drive to elevate industry standards.
Company: M Frank Higgins & Co
“Generally, new members are already significant in the marketplace. Our members want established companies who have a good track record of collaboration and cooperation within the industry, and often, they’ll give us lots of references for new prospective members,” Mark explains. “The idea around Starnet has always been to be better as an industry – to be better partners to each other and to the manufacturers and to produce better results. The big unlock for new members is being able to talk to other entrepreneurs in the industry and gain insight into how they scaled. If you’re a $10 million contractor, the quickest way to learn how to be a $20 million contractor is to join Starnet.”
Industry collaboration
As the demands of commercial interiors continue to evolve, Starnet remains firmly positioned at the forefront of the industry, combining innovation, collaboration, and deep expertise to drive meaningful progress. By empowering its members with cutting-edge tools, a robust partner network, and a shared commitment to excellence, the organization is redefining the future of contract flooring. For contractors looking to grow, adapt, and lead in an increasingly complex market, it’s clear that Starnet continues to offer a proven foundation and path forward.
“The power of our network is the connection we have between the construction industry at large, general contractors, manufacturers, and the A&D community. What we’re trying to do is get the industry to continue to collaborate in a way that moves us all forward. The construction industry is slow and highly regulated, but product and service innovation is happening so fast, which can sometimes prevent the best technologies from being deployed. Because of that, we’re very focused on maintaining collaboration across all the different constituencies to make sure that people are aware of the challenges so that we can increase innovation in our industry,” Mark affirms, concluding our conversation. “We’re in a unique position to openly comment and identify these challenges because we don’t have anything to lose, but we have everything to gain by rapidly changing the industry and adopting new technologies.”