HOLLANDALE &045; When you walk into many businesses, you step on a product most people don’t think much about: a door mat.

You wipe your feet on them, leave your shoes on them, and welcome guests with them.

For Hollandale resident Bill Wilkie, they are the craft of his business, North American Mat Company.

Wilkie recently moved the business from Austin to outside of Hollandale, where he has set up a warehouse and workshop in one of the buildings on his farm. &uot;We have a lot more space out here,&uot; he said.

&uot;Hopefully this summer we’ll build a building in Hollandale,&uot; he said.

North American Mat Co. customizes many types of matting, from simple door mats to anti-fatigue mats, on which clerks stand at cash registers. Wilkie and his two employees cut mats to custom sizes.

They also do silk-screening onto the mats, putting company ensignias and other graphics on them.

In Wilkie’s shop on Wednesday he had an order from a post office on the table. Printed on the mats was the United State Postal Service logo. The company has also done mats for Holiday Inn, Taco Bell, Joe’s Crab Shack and Citgo. He said those orders come not from the company headquarters, but from the individual shops.

Wilkie took over the company a little more than a year ago. After his family sold their waste management business, he spent time farming, but said that as a people person, he had to do something with more human interaction.

&uot;Farming didn’t really have that excitement,&uot; he said. &uot;It’s really pretty boring. There is no person-to-person interaction.&uot;

After telling his banker this, he received a call from one of the banker’s friends who owned the mat company and was looking to sell. Wilkie jumped at the chance.

His business has done well for him.He has international business, with customers from as far as Guam, Puerto Rico and Canada, throughout the United States and throughout the world ordering from the company.

He sends the mats out through UPS or FedEx, and out of Hollandale he runs his product throughout the world.

But Wilkie says he sells locally as well, and to customers just looking for a doormat for their house as well as businesses looking to spruce up their entry way.

&uot;If you’ve got money, we can get something for you,&uot; he said, laughing.