HIGH POINT, NC - Whitewood Industries, a manufacturer of unfinished furniture, says its John Thomas Furniture unit will opening a 40,000 custom finishing operation in High Point, NC, adding 40 jobs to accommodate growth in its custom finish program.

"We import unfinished components from overseas," he said, "and when they arrive here we build it and finish it per the customer's request," John Thomas Furniture's national sales manager, Bryan Sprinkel, told the Triad Business Journal.

Headquartered in Thomasville, NC, John Thomas Furniture has two warehouses there, and third warehouse in High Point. With the new facility, says Sprinkel, John Thomas Furniture will be able to offer 30-day turnaround on orders consistently. The new facility will be running by June 2016, expanding in steps as employees are brought on board. Hiring will being within the next four months. 

John Thomas Furniture's parent company is Whitewood Industries, a distributor of ready-to-finish furniture to retail stores throughout the eastern United States. It employs about 200 workers.

Whitewood was founded in 1979 as a manufacturer of ready-to-finish furniture, evolving into both finished and unfinished furniture throughout the U.S. Furnniture is made from what the company terms Parawood, also knwn as rubberwood - plantation grown hardwood of the genus Hevea. 

Over 95 percent of Whitewood Industries products are crafted in this extremely dense hardwood, harvested after the 10-year cycle of latex rubber extraction from the trees.