Industry members vote for the companies they deem best

More than 65,000 ballots were distributed in NFT's January and February issues and visitors to the magazine's website, NFT Online (www.ntlfloortrends.com), also were given the option of filing an electronic ballot via the Internet. Other members of the industry dropped their voting forms in the ballot boxes at NFT's booth during Surfaces 2002 in Las Vegas. Voting concluded up on Feb. 21.

All flooring professionals, from any segment of the floor covering industry, were eligible to vote for the companies they deemed best according to 10 product-specific groups and an Overall Best Product category.

This year, winner in the Overall Best Product category was Shaw Industries. Mannington Mills was runner-up.

The soft-surface segment of the competition turned out to be battle between two industry titans. In the Carpet category, Shaw Industries and Mohawk Industries tied for first place. In Commercial Carpet, Mohawk Industries took first place and Shaw Commercial came in as runner-up. And for the second straight year, Shaw Rugs captured first place in the Area Rugs competition, while Mohawk placed as runner-up.

The results of the Training Programs vote were identical to last year's with Armstrong World Industries winning first place and Mannington Mills being chosen as runner-up. Lightning also struck twice in the Installation Products, Tools & Equipment category with Mapei again taking first place and Ardex/W.W. Henry coming in as runner-up for the second year in a row.

The remaining categories and their winners were as follows.

Ceramics/Stone: Dal-Tile, first place; Florida Tile, runner-up. Wood Floors: Bruce Hardwood, first place; Harris-Tarkett, runner-up. Laminate Floors: Wilsonart, first place; Mannington Mills, runner-up. Resilient Floors: Mannington Mills, first place; Armstrong World Industries, runner-up. Rubber Floors: Johnsonite, first place; Roppe, runner-up.