-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
My Showroom & Support
MBE Certified
MBE Certification
Triple certified. Independently verified. Two and a half years in the making.
Emerald Fern Finishes is a Black- and woman-owned Minority Business Enterprise, certified at the national, state and city level.
Certification is not a label a company gives itself. It is an audit — of ownership, of control, of who actually runs the business — repeated every year.
The Three Certifications
Certified at every level that matters.
National Minority Supplier Development Council
NMSDC is the national standard for minority business certification, and the credential most corporate supplier-diversity programs recognise. Certification is verified through documentation review and renewed annually.
State of Illinois
State-level MBE certification qualifies us to supply Illinois public projects and to count toward state supplier-diversity participation goals.
City of Chicago
City certification qualifies us for Chicago public and publicly funded work, and toward the MBE participation requirements written into those contracts.
All three certifications are held by Great Lakes Building Products LLC, the certified entity that operates Emerald Fern Finishes, Rose Hill Cabinets and Emerald Fern Finishes. If you are verifying us in the NMSDC, State of Illinois or City of Chicago directories, search that name.
What It Took
Two and a half years.
That is how long it took to complete all three certifications. Not because the paperwork is long — though it is — but because certification requires proving, on the record and in detail, that the people whose names are on the business are the people who own it, run it, and carry its risk.
Ownership has to be documented. Operational control has to be demonstrated, not asserted. Financials are reviewed. And it is all done again at renewal, every year, for as long as the certification is held.
We mention the timeline because it is the part most people never see. It is also the reason the credential means something: it is genuinely difficult to get, and easy to lose.
What Certification Verifies
What an auditor actually confirms.
- ✓That the business is at least 51% owned by one or more individuals from a qualifying minority group.
- ✓That those owners hold real operational control — they make the decisions, not a silent partner or a parent company.
- ✓That the ownership is supported by documentation: formation records, capital contribution, and financial statements.
- ✓That the business is a going concern doing real work, not a pass-through created to satisfy a participation requirement.
- ✓And that all of the above is still true at every annual renewal.
The Commercial Record
Certification is the credential. This is the work.
Emerald Fern Finishes is the direct-to-homeowner brand of Great Lakes Building Products. On the commercial side, the same company supplies flooring as the certified MBE participant on major healthcare construction across the Chicago region.
AbbVie Foundation Cancer Pavilion
A 575,000-square-foot facility on Chicago's South Side — the state's first and only freestanding facility dedicated to cancer care and research. Opening April 2027.
Our role: MBE flooring supplier.
Catherine Gratz Griffin Lake Forest Hospital Campus Development
A 290,000-square-foot campus expansion adding 96 inpatient beds, with two new pavilions and an expanded emergency department opened in February 2026.
Our role: MBE flooring supplier.
Over the past two years we have served as the MBE flooring supplier on ten to fifteen commercial projects.
In the Press
Recognised before the website existed.
“We Deliver, You Win.”
The Daily Herald profiled Camille and Marcus Johnson and their Grayslake distribution company in its Business for a Better World series, noting that it is the only MBE-certified, Black- and woman-owned distributor of its building materials in the Chicago area. Read the article →
Why It Matters
What this means if you are buying a kitchen.
Most people renovating a home are not thinking about supplier diversity certification, and that is fair. But the same audit that qualifies us for a hospital project is the reason you can trust what we tell you about ours: the ownership is verified, the business is real, and there is no parent corporation behind us setting the terms.
Only about 2% of contractors in the United States are Black-owned, and fewer still are distributors. When you buy cabinets or flooring here, you are buying from one of them — at professional-grade pricing, with the same product lines the commercial side supplies.
If you would like the longer version of how that happened, our founders have written it out.
Sourcing for a project with MBE participation requirements?
If you are a general contractor, developer, healthcare system or public agency working to a supplier-diversity goal, we are certified at the national, state and city level and we supply flooring, tile, cabinetry, plumbing fixtures and countertops at commercial scale.
Talk to Us About a Project Trade & Pro Program