VAIL VALLEY, Colorado — The current economic slump in Colorado's Vail Valley hasn't been much fun for anyone. But Roger Benedict is riding out this down time better than most.

Benedict, owner of Ruggs Benedict in Avon, has used the current slump to fill his warehouse with high-quality carpet, bought at deeply discounted prices. He's expanded the company's marketing reach. Most important, he's bought the building the company's been in for years.

The ability to roll with the economic punches over the last 18 months or so helped earn Ruggs Benedict the 2009 Business of the Year award from the Vail Valley Partnership earlier this month.

“He's prepared, he's courageous, he's just a really good businessman,” Vail Valley Partnership President Michael Kurz said. “He uses the tools he's got to his best advantage, and he's got his customers as his top priority.”

Growing up in the business

Benedict has been in the carpet business pretty much his entire life. His father, Bud, was running the family's store in Brighton when another man who grew up in that farming community north of Denver — Rod Slifer — invited him to do some work in a new ski resort on the other side of Vail Pass.

The Benedicts started getting enough work in Vail that the family moved to the mountains in 1967. Roger finished high school at Battle Mountain High School, then went off to college for a while.

He came back to the valley in 1972, and worked with his two older brothers. In those years, the family business was run out of a garage in the mobile home park in Minturn.

Over the years, Benedict's older brothers went off into ventures of their own, leaving Roger with the business. The company incorporated in 1984 as Ruggs Benedict, a name influenced by a late night and adult beverages.

Over the years, Ruggs Benedict was able to do the carpeting in both new lodges and new homes and condos. But as the economy rose and fell, Benedict learned the lesson that neither boom times nor bad times last forever. When the local economy took a nosedive at the end of 2008, Benedict was prepared.

Seizing opportunity

“We've been affected, of course, but this has been the best business opportunity we've ever had,” Benedict said.

As the national, then local, economies dropped off, Benedict had the money in the bank to take advantages of opportunities as they popped up.

As the housing bubble burst, carpet manufacturers found themselves with a lot of unsold inventory. Desperate for business, the manufacturers would cut their wholesale prices — sometimes by half or more — for anyone willing to buy in bulk.

Benedict took advantage, stocking up on high-quality carpet that he can now sell at prices hard to match anywhere. And, with carpet in stock, he can have crews at a customer's home within days, not weeks.

As inventory began building, the old Deep Rock Water warehouse space opened up. Benedict leased it, and kept building his stockpiles.

He also took advantage of suddenly-lowered prices from local media companies to expand his marketing campaigns, targeting people remodeling homes.

“Remodels have filled some of the void,” he said. “We're seeing a lot of changes in the use of rooms as kids grow up and move away.”

With a new warehouse space, Benedict was able to remodel his old storage areas into showrooms. The construction slowdown meant he was able to easily hire crews for great rates.

But the big news came in November of last year. Benedict had just signed another lease extension on his retail and warehouse space when the owner decided to put the building on the market.

The Small Business Administration had recently rolled out a program that offered businesses mortgages with just 10 percent down and no fees, so Benedict jumped again.

Giving back

But as Benedict has used this slump to build his business, he's done it to take care of his customers. The warehouse inventory means customers can get great prices on a wide range of carpeting, from basic to luxurious.

And people who buy new carpet help Benedict give back to the community. For years, Benedict sold the good-quality carpet his crews pulled out of homes. But a while back, he started re-rolling that carpet and donating it to the Habitat Home Store. It's sold there, and proceeds go into Habitat's local home-building efforts.

“It was that giving back that really impressed us,” said one of the judges who reviewed the Vail Valley Partnership's Success Awards nominees (those judges are supposed to remain anonymous). “He's done a lot for the community.”

And, while the tough times linger, Benedict thinks a turnaround could come sooner than many people think.

“We've seen a huge pickup in store traffic,” Benedict said. “We're actually back up to 2008 numbers in terms of store visits, calls and Web traffic.”

Benedict said his company still had a lot of work it was finishing up at the end of 2008, but the store traffic had dropped to nothing.

But these days may be the start of a turnaround.

“We get groups into this valley all the time,” he said. “And all those groups are made up of people with money. Some of those people are going to buy homes here.”

Business Editor Scott N. Miller can be reached at 970-748-2930 or smiller@vaildaily.com.