by Case goods resource names industry retail veteran Micah Swick, president and chief operating officer
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Case goods importer Bernards Furniture Group is transitioning into a new chapter of leadership with Micah Swick, a long-time manager and case goods buyer and merchandiser at Raymour & Flanigan, becoming president and chief operating officer.
He also has acquired an ownership stake in the company alongside Daniel Lim, chairman and CEO of Bernards Furniture Group and Bauhaus Furniture Group.
In his new position, Swick replaces industry veteran Greg Noe, who held the same role and who recently sold his ownership stake in the company back to Lim.
Noe, who had been president and chief operating officer since the summer of 2018, now holds a sales position in the company, handling some of the brand’s major accounts. He also is helping with Swick’s transition into his new position.
Lim said he has known Swick for many years dating back to his time with Raymour & Flanigan, where Swick worked for 18 years, starting in 1993 as a sales manager. He later was named manager of the company’s flagship store in Syracuse, N.Y., a role he held for several years.
After his success working as a turnaround expert to help improve other store locations, he was promoted to the merchandising department, holding various roles such as buyer, director of imports and senior merchandising director.
More than 15 years ago, while traveling in that capacity, he met Lim, and the two got to know one another in their subsequent travels. They also came into contact during Lim’s time at Riverside Furniture and later Austin Group, where Swick would shop the respective lines.
After leaving Raymour in July 2014, Swick joined Belvedere Furniture and then moved on to join motion and lift chair resource Windemere as sales manager. He then left the industry for several years, joining scooter and wheelchair supplier Power Mobility and after that moved on to work with another supplier in the medical field for about two and a half years.
But he told Home News Now that he has wanted to get back into the furniture industry where he has maintained many relationships over the years.
Joining the Bernards team, he said, was the right opportunity at the right time, particularly as it meant getting to work with Daniel Lim, someone he has come to respect over many years.
“I wouldn’t have done this with just anybody. Daniel is a man of character, and that is significant,” he said, while also acknowledging the tenured team at Bernards.
“What I am really impressed with is the folks that he has working here and the tenure that they have,” Swick added, noting that people from the administrative offices to the warehouse to the team in Asia have many years of service to the company. “They are really interested in supporting this company and supporting me and supporting our customers. And I didn’t know that coming in. I didn’t sit down and meet with everybody. I met with Daniel. So that has been very encouraging and it’s going to make my job getting done what we need done a lot easier.”
But he also gave credit to Noe, whom he said has built an impressive product line during his years of leadership with the company. Noe also stayed involved in that process as much as he could following an accident from which he has spent many months recovering.
“That was probably Greg’s biggest contribution and another thing that made the opportunity more enticing,” he said of Noe’s product development expertise. “Greg has done a good job of bringing style and relevance to the product line during the time he was here. We are fortunate for the fact he is going to be around as a rep and the lead person with the RTG account. But he is also sending me information and sharing his thoughts. He wants Bernards to do well, and I am appreciative of that.”
Earlier this year, Lim said he spoke at length with Noe about his role with the company moving forward, including Noe’s concerns about physical limitations that would keep him from doing the job that Lim hired him to do. At that point, Lim gave his blessing for Noe to step down and helped him make the transition from his executive and ownership position. He then contacted Swick about joining the company.
“I talked to Micah and the time was right,” Lim said. “We hit it off and I am excited.”
In his new role, Lim said, Swick will manage all areas of the business from operations and product development to sales.
“He has the product knowledge and it is pretty easy for him to come in and get to know what is going on,” Lim said. “And so I am ready to kind of turn everything over to him. I told Micah, ‘this is your ship. You take it where we need to go.’ In a nutshell, he has the attitude, he has the integrity and he has the knowledge to take this company to a different level.”
At the upcoming April High Point Market, visitors can meet Swick at the company’s showroom in space 200 of The Atrium at 430 S. Main St.
