Thanks to the Winston-Salem Journal's coverage of the court hearing about Triad Appliance Center we now know that the store is owned by The Langley Group Inc.  If you remember my earlier post, the one piece of information I couldn't gather by doing online searches about the business was the business name for the owner. I'd read that Thi Alderman, the ex-wife of Brad Ellison who was mentioned prominently in the articles about the customers' problems with the store, was the owner but I couldn't find her name anywhere in the state corporation filings.

Searching for The Langley Group Inc. on the North Carolina database of corporations I immediately found an active listing for The Langley Group Inc. that showed the business was formed in October of 2003, that John L. Barber is the listing agent, that the registered mailing address of 155 Sunnyknoll Court, Suite 200, Winston-Salem NC 27106, and that the principal business address that is the same as the store.  As an attorney for Wells Jenkins Mr. Barber is also the registered agent for 64 other companies so there's nothing odd about that at all.

The annual report filed with the state in 2004 shows Thi Ellison as the President and Treasurer and a Brian Ray as the Secretary.  The 2007 annual report shows Thi Alderman as the President and Treasurer and again shows Brian Ray as the Secretary.

A quick search on Google for "Brian Ray Winston-Salem" turned up an article at the Home Builders Association of Winston-Salem website about a 2006 fundraiser that was co-sponsored by Triad Appliance Center.  There's not a whole lot to be made of that other than the notion that until the store closed last week most of the information available about the store seemed to indicate it was a successful local company.  As recently as November of this year Thi Alderman was interviewed about the sales tax holiday and she had this to say:

Thi Alderman didn't know what to expect when the state switched on its first sales-tax holiday for energy-efficient appliances.

But after three days of "being overrun with customers" at Triad
Appliance Center in Winston-Salem, Alderman said yesterday that she
would be glad for the holiday to arrive more than once a year.

"I'd say we had four times our normal traffic during the tax-holiday
period" of Friday through Sunday, said Alderman, the owner of the
appliance store.

"People were buying front-load washers like crazy, including some of the $2,000 models.

"My wish for the next tax-holiday period is that with appliances
being such big-ticket items, many consumers need more than just three
days to shop," Alderman said.

So we're left to wonder what happened.  What role did Thi Alderman's ex-husband Brad Ellison play in all this?  As I outlined in the earlier post you have to wonder how he can claim ignorance when he owns the land and building that houses Triad Appliance Center and he acted as the sales person for at least some of the customers who filed complaints against the business.