Dan and Michele Wilkins founded the retail fitness store Charleston Fitness Equipment. To this day, the company remains 100% family and employee owned with no debts and has been profitable since Year One.

Charleston Fitness focused initially on primarily serving residential customers fitness equipment, accessories and flooring needs in the Charleton area. Within the first year, this venture quickly expanded to Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head and soon became the largest specialty fitness equipment dealer in the state of South Carolina.

John Ward, an experienced executive from Sportevo was hired to handle the expansion into North Carolina. With the expansion came the operation of six retail locations in the Carolinas. Also in this year, Barry Wilkins was brought on as a Service Manager.

With the retail business earning a reputation for excellent service, customer satisfaction and “turnkey home gyms,” soon commercial customers including major universities, hotels, apartment complexes, and sports teams such as the Carolina Panthers began coming to Charleston Fitness for all their needs. This led to the hiring of multiple commercial sales managers, including John’s brother Tom Ward who had been a top performer at Xerox.

With an expanded commitment to commercial customers, the company opened and operated four market research labs that are still functioning today. Products are tested in these working environments prior to being introduced to the sales force. These include Personal Fitness, Group Fitness, CrossFit and Indoor Cycling.

In February, Wilkins Fitness began its formal rollout of its national expansion headed by a team of Meredith May and Brenda Jacobs.

Under the direction of Bradford Wilkins, a retooled "Wilkins Sales Academy" was created and taught in March, April, August and September. The Academy is a highly rated 60-hour training program for new Commercial Account Managers.

created and taught in March, April, August and September. The Academy is a highly rated 60-hour training program for new Commercial Account Managers.

Jake Wilkins was hired in April to handle IT and Technical Support, where he currently manages a team of internal helpdesk analysts. Kailey Wilkins became the 8th Wilkins family member to join the company, providing accounting support.

During this time, the company continued expanding its offerings to include a wide array of products and new vendors reaching over 700,000 products.

In August 2011, John Ward was promoted to National Director of Sales, Tim Jensen to Director of Vendor Relations as well as several more internal
promotions to support the rapid growth.

In September 2011, Wilkins Fitness celebrated its 10th birthday and added its one millionth product offering. This large portfolio has allowed Wilkins to be the only company in the industry established to offer its customers a comprehensive solution for their facilities with one point of accountability.

With over 1.5 million products from 400 vendors, Wilkins had outgrown its “fitness” pedigree. With offerings including playgrounds, flooring, medical equipment, furniture, web sites, etc., the holding company changed its name to Wilkins Solutions Enterprises.

As part of the new brand strategy, the company introduced 30 new sub-brands:

Through Wilkins Service Solutions, they have established the largest service network in the United States of Fitness, Flooring and Playground installers/repair/maintenance crews.

Wilkins Solutions continues its exponential growth in 2012 adding new service relationships, vendors, products and sales managers. With its promote-from-within only policy, increased growth means increased opportunities for those working for the company.