Made by FirmeCrete Coatings

Firme translates literally to "firm," "solid," or "steady" in Spanish, It can mean a steadfast attitude or a slang term for something excellent

Ray Cano Jr. developed FirmeCrete Floor & Wall Mix over decades and and patented it in 2019. He’s the bigger fella on the right.

Ray built his career in Southern California—the proving ground of decorative concrete. If you're looking for forgiving specifications, easy customers, and simple finishes, Southern California isn't it. SoCal is to decorative concrete what Formula One is to racing: the standards are higher, the customers are tougher, and the mistakes are more visible.

The region has long been the industry's laboratory. Trends that take years to reach the rest of the country often start there. Customers expect more. Architects specify more. The installers are the best, but they are often asked for nearly impossible finishes.

When projects become difficult, expensive, or seemingly impossible, contractors, architects, and owners often call Ray. In the 1980s and ‘90s, they called his dad, Ray Sr. Cano Architecture has built a reputation for solving problems that others walk away from.

If you're among the top tier of decorative concrete professionals in the United States, there's a good chance you already know his name.

In 2024, he partnered with Cory Hanneman, that’s me on the left there. I spent decades building and eventually selling one of Texas' most innovative decorative concrete installation companies. While Ray sharpened his skills in one of the most demanding markets in America, I learned to build systems, train teams, and deliver high-end work from a tiny Texas town with one of the shallowest labor pools imaginable.

Different backgrounds. Same obsession: Making workmen successful.

It needs genuinely better materials.

As contractors, we spent decades solving problems for individual customers. But eventually we realized something:

The best way to create value wasn't by installing another floor.

It was by creating materials that could help thousands of installers solve those same problems themselves.

We've lived through product failures, missed deadlines, impossible specifications, and expensive callbacks. We know how much pressure installers carry because we've carried it ourselves.

That's why we obsess over things that many manufacturers treat as afterthoughts:

• Consistency from batch to batch.

• Packaging that is simple and difficult to misuse.

• Instructions that actually make sense.

• Fast shipping and reliable availability.

• Products designed around field conditions, not laboratory fantasies.

We are not chemists making products that that work in theory.

We are makers that share what works in the real world.