CLEVELAND — Years ago, Frank Floyd was in the heating business when he had an idea to help the Cleveland Browns. His portable heaters would keep the players warm during those cold late season games. Floyd made a deal with the team in the late 1980s.
And when the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, an equipment manager had a request.
"I like the space heaters, but I'd like my guys to sit on something,” recalled Floyd, the founder, president & CEO of Dragon Seats. “So I asked him for a piece of paper and I drew a bench. And the bench that I drew, I'm sitting on right now."
And in that instant, Dragon Seats was born. A bench that can be heated or cooled, designed to hold 300-pound football players. Floyd says it is about safety rather than comfort, allowing athletes to play in the heat and cold without risking their health.
“What we're doing for the sport of football is creating uniformity across sidelines to help maximize player safety, comfort and performance in any and all-weather conditions,” said Franklin Floyd, Dragon Seats' COO and Frank Floyd’s son.
Innovating the seats to meet the mission.
“We've gone just from a heated bench to supplying heat out of a manifold. So it's blowing either cold air or warm air over their shoulders. And as you'll notice this deck (what the players sit in) is perforated so it blows up as well,” said Frank Floyd.
It even keeps helmets at peak performance.
"This hot hat will keep the bladders warm so they're supple when they put them on their head when it's freezing cold," Frank Floyd explained.
This football season, the company has expanded to more sidelines with the addition of college football's Big Ten Conference. It's the first time Dragon Seats have partnered with an NCAA conference.
“The conference has hired us to not only supply to the home sidelines, but also to the visiting sidelines,” said Frank Floyd. “So visiting teams don't have to bring their own equipment. It's already there.”
The look of the benches can be customized with whatever the team wants.
"These are really a billboard, and we can make them look however, our clients would like them to look. If it's a team, if it's a sponsor that they bring to us," explained Frank's daughter, Molly Floyd-Weisinger, Dragon Seats’ chief administrative officer and graphic designer.
Dragon Seats is run by a father, son and daughter who lead a family of dedicated employees working long hours and weekends to meet the demand.
“It's incredibly rewarding to work with my family. I get to work with my dad and my sister every single day and see them succeed,” said Franklin Floyd. “It's hard to put into words what that means to me.”
That success continues to grow, with Dragon Seats in baseball dugouts, at golf and tennis tournaments, even ski resorts. They are building to a global brand, with their guiding principle.
"We do what we say, what we're going to do. And I think that's what the customers really enjoy about our service," said Molly Floyd-Weisinger.
“We are in a very, very visible space. We're in a space in the NFL, in college. There's no room for mistakes and that's not easy to do,” remarked Frank Floyd.
Dragon Seats is proud to be based and manufactured here in Cleveland. They have two other locations in Jacksonville, Florida and Kansas City, Missouri. There are over a dozen full-time employees, but during football season they ramp up to 75 workers to deliver Dragon Seats to hundreds of sidelines.