Women at Shaw Recognized with STEP Awards

DALTON—The Manufacturing Institute awarded Shaw Industries’ Kim Seijo, business intelligence and MDM (product domain) director; LaRuthie Mason, START industrial maintenance training manager; and Erika Swartz, senior process engineer, with the Women in Manufacturing Science, Technology, Engineering and Production (STEP) Ahead Award.

Seijo and Mason are among the 100 recipients to be recognized as honorees and Swartz is among the 30 emerging leaders selected. The winners of this year’s award were selected amongst hundreds of applicants from numerous manufacturers across the country reflecting a diversity of manufacturing sectors and positions.

Seijo was selected for the positive impact she has made within Shaw through the use of data to make better business decisions; Mason was selected for her leadership in preparing associates for highly skilled positions through the START program and leading efforts related to the Shaw Maker Space; and Swartz for her process improvements supporting the start-up of Shaw’s Evergreen Ringgold recycling facility.

“These 130 women are the faces of exciting careers in manufacturing,” said Jennifer McNelly, executive director, the Manufacturing Institute. “We chose to honor these women because they each made significant achievements in manufacturing through positive impact on their company and the industry as a whole.”

The efforts of the STEP Ahead program parallel those of the Women’s Innovation Network (WiN), a program Shaw launched in 2014 to support the development of leaders at Shaw through resources and opportunities that help women drive successful careers.

For more, call (800) 441-7429 or visit shawfloors.com.

Armstrong Completes Spin-Off of AFI, Names Officers

LANCASTER, PA.—Armstrong World Industries (AWI) has completed its previously announced separation of Armstrong Flooring, Inc. (AFI) as an independent public company.

Armstrong has also announced an executive team for AFI.

Donald Maier will serve as president and CEO. Maier came to Armstrong six years ago as part of the TPG private equity investment team. Prior to that, he worked for Hill-Rom.

John “Jay” Thompson will serve as senior vice president and CFO. Thompson has been with Armstrong for one year and prior to that worked with Chobani, PepsiCo, TPG, Bain & Co. and Goldman Sachs.

David Schulz will serve as the company’s senior vice president and COO. Shultz has been with Armstrong for four years and prior to that was CFO of P&G’s Snack Division. He is also a retired officer of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Dominic Rice continues to serve as senior vice president focused on Armstrong’s North America commercial flooring business. Rice has been with Armstrong for 34 years.

Joseph Bondi serves as senior vice president for Armstrong’s North America residential flooring business. He has been with Armstrong for two years and previously worked for CertainTeed and Lutron.

For more, call (717) 672-9611 or visit armstrong.com.

Alliance Flooring Honors Outstanding Members

ALPHARETTA, GA.—Alliance Flooring recently recognized and honored some of the most innovative and brightest retailers and suppliers in the flooring industry.

“These awards symbolize the persistence and excellence achieved by our members and suppliers during the past year,” said Ron Dunn, the group’s co-CEO.

The Retailer of the Year awards were presented to Duke Karns of Carpetland USA and Stacey Pape of CarpetsPlus ColorTile for their leadership in rebate volume earnings, support of merchandising launches, convention and summit attendance, networking with fellow members, store branding and use of Alliance’s website programs.

“Really, this goes to all the people working for me back in Lafayette,” said Karns. “Thank you to all the Carpetland stores represented here and the entire family of Alliance Flooring.” He closed by saying, “Always say something good to somebody.”

Dunn added, “Stacey’s family business joined as a charter member in 1997 and was consistently one of our top 25 performing members. In 2010, she was hit with a situation that turned into an opportunity for her to go out on her own. Instead of throwing in the towel, she decided to tough it out. She fought for market share in her area, and after five years she’s outpacing her previous sales in the family business. She will also go down in history as being our first CarpetsPlus ColorTile Destination location, and the host of our 2016 Summit.”

Outstanding Performance Awards were presented to suppliers and members who exemplified leadership in areas such as support of 2015 private label merchandising, convention attendance, support of group endeavors and continued growth of their business within the program. Recipients were: Eric Langan, Carpetland USA; Josh and Steve Elder, Gainesville CarpetsPlus ColorTile; Missy Bakken, DeGeus CarpetsPlus; and Tom Hebert and Lisa Branch, Tom’s Floor Store.

Highest Sales Increase Awards were presented to members and a supplier whose continued efforts have increased their volume in both program sales and rebates over the last year.

Member winners were: Gene Podell, Carpetland USA, Roanoke, Va.; Claire McCoy, Rugs, Rolls and More, Plaistow, N.H.; Rod and Angie Marchand, Tom’s Home Furnishings, Harvey, N.D.; and Mark Caruso, Caruso’s Floors, Spokane, Wash. Supplier winner was Patrick Falk, IVC.

Sandra Stanifer of ColorTile and Carpet, Redmond, Ore., received the National Retail Salespeople of the Year award; Welton Davison, Shaw Industries, received the Hard Surface Supplier of the Year award; and Ann McDermott, Shaw Industries received Carpet Supplier of the Year.

For more, call (770) 528-0222 or visit carpetsplusbuyinggroup.com.

USGBC Announces Addenda to LEED

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has announced the quarterly addenda to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system, which includes a new pilot Alternative Compliance Path (ACP) credit that is designed to further advance environmentally responsible forest management and help rid buildings of illegal wood by promoting the use of wood that is verified to be legal.

The pilot ACP builds on the robust infrastructure that has been built around responsible wood sourcing and chain of custody to test an approach to prerequisite requirements, which could serve as a model for other building materials.

This new pilot ACP is applicable to both LEED 2009 and LEED v4 systems. While LEED has always rewarded leadership in materials specification, this new ACP seeks to leverage LEED’s power by focusing attention on the significant need for more comprehensive and effective legality verification of building products, according to the organization. The pilot ACP is designed to address a critical piece of the supply chain and reward project teams who proactively verify the wood they are using is legal.

“Healthy, vibrant forests are an essential piece of life as we know it,” said Rick Fedrizzi, CEO and founding chair, USGBC. “LEED has made tremendous strides by promoting leadership on sourcing of forestry products. We want LEED to also be a significant driver for stopping illegal logging. As we have begun looking at approaches to incentivize responsible sourcing of all materials that go into our buildings, such as concrete, steel, copper and other materials, we recognize the need to address both the top—rewarding the best—as well as the bottom by eliminating unacceptable practices.”

For more, call (202)742-3792 or visit usgbc.org/LEED.

Mohawk Group Issues New Health Product Declarations

DALTON—Mohawk Group has issued publicly disclosed Health Product Declarations (HPD) under the new HPD Open Standard Version 2.0 for EcoFlex NXT modular commercial floor covering and EcoFlex NXT Air tufted modular cushion tiles.

The HPD is an open standard that establishes a standard methodology and specification for reporting and disclosing information about the ingredients in a building product and their associated health information.

“These new HPDs will take the place of the HPDs that Mohawk issued under the original HPD 1.0 open standard,” said Rochelle Routman, Mohawk Flooring’s vice president of sustainability. “With the implementation of LEED v4, it is more important than ever before to provide our customers with complete, transparent ingredients information of our products, and the potential health impacts of the ingredients themselves.

“HPDs establish a common framework and language that Mohawk and other building product manufacturers can use to communicate ingredients and health information, which ensures accurate and consistent reporting.”

Mohawk’s new HPDs for both EcoFlex NXT modular commercial floor covering and EcoFlex NXT Air tufted cushion modular tiles includes the product ingredients, product descriptions and recycled content.

For more, call (800) 554-6637 or visit MohawkGroup.com.

WFCA Receives NAPS Golden Thinker Award

DALTON—North American Precis Syndicate (NAPS) has awarded the World Floor Covering Association (WFCA) its Golden Thinker award for outstanding editorial achievement.

The award was presented to WFCA and its public relations agency of record, Story Dept., for exceptional media coverage in connection with the association’s 2015 flooring awareness campaign achievements. This is the 10th consecutive year that NAPS has presented the award to WFCA for one of its public relations initiatives.

NAPS distributes feature releases for more than 750 companies and organizations across the country. Its participants include Fortune 500 companies, national advertisers such as Coca-Cola, Ford and McDonald’s, and more than 100 other associations and government agencies. The Golden Thinker award is the organization’s annual recognition of outstanding campaigns selected from the work of those contributors.

NAPS representatives said the WFCA consumer awareness program received extraordinarily high placement volume with 2,740 articles reaching over 60 million consumers. Average placement is 600 articles, according to NAPS. More than 45% of WFCA’s editorial coverage was generated in the most competitive media markets—the nation’s top 50 cities.

According to NAPS, to date, nearly 300 million consumers in both large and small markets nationwide have viewed WFCA articles.

For more, call (714) 978-6440 or visit WFCA.org.

Brumlow Mills Launches Hospitality Division

CALHOUN, GA.—Brumlow Mills has launched a hospitality division called Encore Hospitality Carpet.

Industry veteran Richard Heaver has been named president and is responsible for setting the division’s growth and strategy. Zeftron nylon has been selected as Encore’s exclusive partner for its custom and running line multi-level, cut-loop solution dyed products. The initial launch consists of eight collections comprising 56 products manufactured with Encore’s innovative Colortec system.

“Brumlow has built a highly successful business by emphasizing customer service, increasing speed of delivery and driving innovations in color and design technology,” said Heaver. “By adapting these same principles to the hospitality industry, and by partnering with Zeftron who shares these same principles, we’re offering designers and specifiers a fresh alternative when it comes to carpet options for hospitality environments.”

For more, call (844) 225-3100 or visit encorehospitalitycarpet.com.

Fuse Recognizes Outstanding Members at Annual Conference

LAGUNA NIGUEL, CALIF.—Fuse Alliance recognized the recipients of its Member and Supplier Awards at its annual conference.

More than 200 network members from the U.S. and Canada, as well as flooring product and materials suppliers, attended the Fuse annual conference, which was held in Nashville, Tenn. Fuse network members were recognized for excellence in communication, reporting and follow up, loyalty, sustainability and spirit.

Member Awards were presented to seven network businesses: Cherry Carpet and Flooring, based in Virginia, captured Excellence in Communication; Brock Contract Services, based in North Carolina, captured Excellence in Reporting and Follow Up; three network members received Excellence in Loyalty including FDC Contract in Kansas, Franklin Flooring in Pennsylvania and Signature Commercial Floor Covering in Southern California. Flooring Resources Corp., based in Illinois, was recognized for its contribution to Ecollect, Fuse’s reclamation program. Finally, Certified Finishes, with locations in Atlanta, Florida and South Carolina, received the Spirit Award.

Supplier Awards were presented to four of the network’s preferred suppliers: Johnsonite received Best Product, XL Brands received Best Service and Schönox received Best Support; additionally, Mohawk Group captured Supplier of the Year. Fuse conducts an annual member survey for the Supplier Awards.

For more, call (888) 586-1198 or visit fusealliance.com.

Milliken On ‘World’s Most Ethical’ List for 10th Year

SPARTANBURG, S.C.—Milliken has been recognized as a World’s Most Ethical Company by the Ethisphere Institute.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Ethisphere and the World’s Most Ethical Companies designation, which recognizes those companies that align principle with action, make trust part of their corporate culture and share future industry standards by introducing tomorrow’s best practices.

Milliken is one of 14 companies to receive this honor every year since Ethisphere’s inception in 2007, and one of 21 privately-held companies to be recognized this year.

According to the institute, Milliken’s corporate accountability, resource preservation and mission to deliver innovations that ‘do good’ for the world are a few examples of why the storied 150-year-old company has earned this high honor for 10 consecutive years.

“The landscape of corporate ethics is changing, driven by an increasing desire for transparent relationships with companies in the industries and local communities in which they operate,” said Joe Salley, Milliken’s president and CEO. “Strong ethical values and a passion for meaningful innovation unite all Milliken associates worldwide.”

For more, call (864) 503-2020 or visit milliken.com.

Cosentino Introduces Dekton Floor and Tile Program

NEW YORK—Cosentino has launched the Dekton Floor and Tile program.

Dekton, a universal architectural application material with strength and performance for interior and exterior applications ranging from countertops to facades and ventilated rainscreens, is now available in large-format tile sizes.

“Porcelain has long been synonymous with high-performing tile material, however Dekton’s new foray into the tile channel offers an extremely versatile new option for tile and flooring applications and ushers in the next generation of products for this segment,” said Carl Harris, director of flooring, Cosentino North America. “The unique technical characteristics of Dekton, from scratch and stain resistance to incredible strength and durability, represent highly desirable performance traits for tile and flooring materials.”

Dekton is an ultra-compact surface composed of a blend of raw materials that undergo a unique technological process known as Particle Sintering Technology—an accelerated version of the metamorphic changes that occur when natural stone is exposed to high pressure and temperature for thousands of years.

For more call (281) 494-7277 or visit dekton.com.

CARE Announces $2.4 Million in Grant Awards for Carpet Recycling

DALTON—The Carpet America Recovery Effort (CARE) and the California Carpet Stewardship Program have approved approximately $2.4 million in grant funding for eight capital improvements and three product testing projects that utilize post-consumer carpet.

Of the funds available, 88% ($2.1 million) has been awarded to California-based projects.

Grant applicants selected for awards are: American Fiber Cushion, Carpet Solutions, GHD, Landfill Clear, Rethink Green, SafePath Products, Sierra Rubber Co., South Bend Modern Molding, West Coast Rubber Recycling and XT Green.

Funding of proposed projects is contingent upon grant acceptance by the applicants and execution of a grant agreement. CARE expected to issue a final Notice of Proposed Awards at press time.

For more, call (706) 428-2127 or visit carpetrecovery.org.

Karndean Revamps Website

EVESHAM, U.K.—Karndean Designflooring has redesigned its website.

Offering a new experience, the website allows users to search its complete range of wood and stone designs by product, and also by room and interior styles for the very first time. With large, close-up product images to view, visitors can zoom in and out, and get closer than ever before online.

Designed to offer inspiration and support to both retailers, designers and customers at the point of sale, the website offers decorating ideas to recreate individual styles such as country life, modern rustic and shabby chic.

“Taking on a clean, modular layout, we had the end user in mind when presenting superior product imagery,” said Heather Horton, head of digital and communications at Karndean. “It was important we were able to demonstrate the intricate details of each product through our imagery online, and offer inspiration zones for users.”

As well as being able to order samples and brochures and search for their nearest retailers, visitors can access digital tools and apps including the recently updated Floorstyle tool and Augmented Reality (AR) app with its new Style Guide feature—allowing users to search by range, or by a combination of look, tone and size options.

For more, call (888) 266-4343 or visit karndean.com.

Hunter Douglas to Acquire Levolor and Kirsch

PEARL RIVER, N.Y.—Hunter Douglas has announced plans to acquire window coverings and drapery hardware business and brands Levolor and Kirsch—both divisions of Newell Rubbermaid.

According to Ron Kass, president and CEO of Hunter Douglas, North America, “Levolor is an exciting addition to the Hunter Douglas portfolio that allows us to supplement our longstanding position in the specialty dealer channel with a strengthened position in the home center channel. Together these businesses will allow us to better service the unique needs of each of these distribution channels and consumer market segments.”

Levolor, founded in 1935, is a supplier of window covering products to the North American home center channels. Kirsch is a long established window covering and drapery hardware brand.

Levolor is based in Atlanta, and has manufacturing facilities in Ogden, Utah; Agua Prieta, Mexico; Shenzhen, China; a customer service center in High Point, N.C., as well as several logistic facilities and sales offices in the U.S and Canada.

The Hunter Douglas Group is comprised of 126 companies, 50 manufacturing facilities and 76 assembly operations in more than 100 countries.

For more, call (800) 789-0331 or visit hunterdouglas.com.

Haines Restructures Management Team

GLEN BURNIE, MD.—Haines is restructuring its management team to prepare for the future of the company.

Sixteen Haines leaders were promoted and given expanded duties to strengthen the company’s capability to improve and grow.

“When you are a top-notch company you develop people,’” said Bruce Zwicker, president and CEO of the company. “Changes are inevitable and when they occur, they are opportunities if you are prepared. We are. We’ve been preparing for years.”

Mike Barrett has been promoted to executive vice president–logistics; Hoy Lanning to executive vice president–CMH division; John Coakley to chief financial and technology officer; and Bill Rothenbach to senior vice president–human resources.

Additionally, Jed Collins has been promoted to director—supplies division; Brian Green to director—CMH Sales, south; Mike Thomas to director—CMH sales, Florida; Jay Friend to director—CMH sales, north; Brian Parker to CMH marketing director; Nitin Mahajan to director—logistics optimization and planning; Mike Chisari to director—customer service and Haines’ voice of the customer; Eric Davis to director—purchasing and supplier reliability; and Jim Dennis to senior manager—supplies marketing and sales, north.

For more, call (800) 922-9248 or visit jjhaines.com.

Nydree Sponsoring Promise686’s Tough Mudder Atlanta Team

ATLANTA—Nydree Flooring is a premier corporate sponsor of the Promise686 team participating in the Tough Mudder: Atlanta obstacle race, taking place in May.

The competition is central to the Promise686 Tough Campaign, which seeks to raise awareness of the growing foster care crisis in Georgia.

“Nydree Flooring is built to last a lifetime, but the impact of fostering a child will last for generations,” said Jason Brubaker, Nydree’s vice president of sales and marketing. “Our goal is to encourage more families to provide foster care for the thousands of children in need of a home across the nation.”

This is the second year that Nydree has been a sponsor of Promise686’s Tough Campaign, and its team’s participation in Tough Mudder: Atlanta, an 11.4-mile race with 20 obstacles designed to test the mental and physical fitness of participants.

For more, call (434) 525-5252 or visit nydreeflooring.com.
 

Editor’s note: For complete coverage of these and other industry news stories, visit our website at floortrendsmag.com, where you can also sign up for a free subscription to our daily enewsletter, TalkFloor.