G. Carolyn Butler had a successful career in the carpeting industry following her graduation from high school. For roughly 30 years, she excelled as the owner and president of Carpeton Mills Inc. in Dalton, Georgia, which is known as the carpet capital of the world, from the 1970s until she sold the business in 2010. The central location of Carpeton Mills allowed for numerous professional opportunities. For her excellence, she was the recipient of a number of honors and accolades for carpet design in New York City in the 1980s. Notably, Ms. Butler helped to create several awards for carpet design as well, including the A-Dec Design Award.
While she is now retired from the carpet industry, Ms. Butler has remained active as an entrepreneur and presently owns and operates a hobby business, where she sells a broad mix of antiques, home décor, collectibles and other interior and exterior furnishings out of a physical storefront. Her considerable expertise in collectibles and home décor has allowed her to flourish in her primary duties, which include sales and management. Ms. Butler has made a name for herself through her communication skills and the personal touch that she brings to all of her customer projects.
With a great love of design work, Ms. Butler considers her favorite part of her career to be working with her customers and developing good, lasting relationships with them, noting that every customer is important and should be treated as such. She truly stands out in the field for her emphasis on working one-on-one with her customers and doing her utmost to ensure they feel important. Many of Ms. Butler’s customers over the years have grown to be like family to her.
Attributing much of her success to her natural aptitude and affinity for business, Ms. Butler also credits the motivation that her innate skills and creativity inspired in her. She notes that you can’t just look at the surface of things; you have to make a proper evaluation of the situation and then let your instincts guide you based on that evaluation. Furthermore, she feels incredibly blessed that everything in her career has seemed to fall into place so seamlessly, from her first career in the carpet industry to her current career in décor and antiques. Throughout her professional journey, Ms. Butler has always done her utmost to seek innovation and stay ahead of changes in her fields, particularly when it comes to technological advances.
Looking toward the future, Ms. Butler plans to take life one day at a time, though she notes that she doesn’t have plans to stop working since she feels that working is what’s keeping her young, an opinion shared by her doctor. In her free time, she is active with her local church and enjoys spending time with her friends and family, which includes her six siblings and countless nieces and nephews. She seeks to live her life by the motto, “Do the best you can,” on both a personal and professional level. To young and aspiring professionals, she would advise that hard work and always doing your best will bring you to great reward and achievement, and that when you work hard, you not only receive recognition, but you will also gain greater capacity and ability to achieve success.
