The Floor Covering Industry Foundation (FCIF)’s Gala in Gotham is nearly sold out and has already sold a record number of tickets. The black-tie event will be at Gotham Hall in New York City on October 5, 2024, and proceeds support the mission of FCIF to help families get back on their feet when battling catastrophic injuries, severe disabilities, or other life-altering medical crises. 

Founded in 1981 by industry leaders, the 501(c)(3) charitable non-profit helps those who have worked in the floor covering industry by providing direct grants for medical care and other basic needs. 

The event will honor three leaders whose contributions have made a lasting impact on the flooring industry: Sy Cohen, chairman and founder of Stanton Carpet; Dan Frierson, chairman and CEO of The Dixie Group; and Roger Marcus, chairman and CEO of American Biltrite. 

For more information or to purchase sponsorships or tickets, visit fcif.org/gala2024.

FCIF Gala Honoree Sy Cohen 

Sy Cohen, the founder and executive chairman of Stanton Carpet, has been an industry fixture for more than 50 years. He launched Stanton in 1980, but his roots are in retail.

Cohen founded Country Carpet in 1972 as a trade showroom on Long Island selling moderate to better-end carpet products to interior designers. As the business flourished, Cohen saw the opportunity to offer his clients more decorative, proprietary products. In 1978, he visited Domotex Germany to source products and deliver on his vision.  

Among the first products were wool flatweaves from Denmark and Belgium, a perfect fit for his clients. Cohen started supplying proprietary products to differentiate and accelerate Country Carpet's growth. 

“The good thing was it was proprietary; the bad thing was you had to buy a lot of it,” Cohen said.

The strategy worked: Country Carpet sold exclusive products, gaining higher margins while exciting the client base. The challenge: selling the inventory through one showroom. Cohen contacted his dealer friends and a few agents throughout the Northeast. He knew instinctively that better-end flooring showrooms could sell his product. A new idea was born. Tapping his roots in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Cohen formed Stanton Carpet in 1980.

Initially, the product portfolio was small: two wool/acrylic blends and a flatwoven wool/nylon. Within a year, Cohen added three more products and never looked back. Throughout the last four and a half decades, Stanton grew into a decorative powerhouse, supplying over 800 carpet products across multiple brands. Stanton utilized a combination of organic growth with instrumental launches like "The Wilton Gallery" in the mid-'90s and strategic acquisitions, including Antrim, Rosecore, and Crescent, to fuel its growth. Today, the company also offers decorative hard surface products. 

Under Cohen's leadership, Stanton has been a pioneer and frequently credited with being the first and still the most formidable supplier of high-end woven products to the better-end retail community around the U.S. and Canada.  

FCIF Gala Honoree Dan Frierson

For nearly six decades, Dan Frierson has been one of the flooring industry’s most prominent executives, a career that dates to 1966 when he first joined Dixie Yarns, to the present as chairman of The Dixie Group. Following in the footsteps of his father, J. Burton Frierson, who came to Dixie in 1925, Frierson paid his dues, initially working every job in the plant and operations during the early years before being appointed CEO in 1980 and chairman in 1986.

In the early 1990s, it became clear that Dixie’s customers would be heading overseas, searching for lower-cost alternatives to apparel manufacturing. To ensure the company's survival, Frierson led the challenge of transforming the business from a textile company to a carpet company. Dixie purchased Masland Carpets in 1993.

 “We had been selling them yarn for 40 years, and we had talked in the ’80s about maybe trying to get together," Frierson said. This gave Dixie a foothold in the carpet business.

From 1993 to 2000, Dixie made over a dozen carpet-related acquisitions and divested its textile and apparel assets. The big one came in 2000 when Dixie acquired Fabrica International. The deal helped secure Dixie’s brand as a luxury floor covering manufacturer and further burnished Dan Frierson’s credentials as a leading flooring executive who was unafraid to take risks. The Dixie Group has been a supporter of FCIF for many years. Frierson received two degrees from The University of Virginia, a B.A. in history and an M.B.A.  Frierson lives with his wife of 60 years in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and has five children and nine grandchildren.

FCIF Gala Honoree Roger Marcus

Roger Marcus’ floor covering industry career spans nearly 60 years, presiding over his family business, American Biltrite, for the past four decades. The Marcus family story begins after World War II when his father, Robert, president of American Tile Co., took the company that would later be known as Amtico from manufacturing rubber heels and soles to rubber flooring. The major move came in the early 1950s when they started making thermoplastic vinyl floor tile. The company would be the first to chemically emboss, cut, and register VCT tile. The company would soon develop the first no-wax floor tiles in 1969.

All the while, Roger rose through the ranks, beginning as a sales rep in 1967 upon graduating from Boston University. He became CEO in 1983 and oversaw the merger of Congoleum in 1992. As CEO of Congoleum, he launched a litany of innovative products, including DuraStone, DuraCeramic, Ultima, and ArmorGuard. At one time, the company was worth over $250 million.

Roger has also donated his time and efforts to associations that forward the industry. He has served multiple terms as president of the Resilient Floor Covering Institute and has been chairman of the FCIF grant committee for many years. In addition, his company has been a corporate donor to FCIF since the beginning, and Roger personally planned the first three FCIF galas. His combined impact of donations and fundraising equals a lifetime impact of over $1 million to FCIF.