At TISE 2019, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on finding and maintaining qualified installers. I was joined by Julie Judd of Master Craft Floors, a commercial installation firm with locations in Detroit and Las Vegas; Joe Madden of Carpet World, a retailer in Paramas, N.J.; and John McGrath of INSTALL.
Each panelist had their own take on what has caused the installation crisis and how to fix it, and I came away from this panel feeling uplifted that there are solutions available—it’s just going to take a lot of grassroots networking. The industry will have to continue to band together to promote installation as a valuable trade to our future workforce.