The Floor Covering Institute Blog

Hello! I am Susan Negley, Director of Communications at the Floor Covering Institute. Since you’ll be hearing from me occasionally I wanted to introduce myself. I’ve worked in the flooring industry for 17 years, as a retail store owner, in communications capacities for a flooring distributor (Misco Shawnee) and two buying groups (Color Tile, LLC and CCA Global Partners). But it isn’t just the flooring industry that makes me who I am so let’s turn back the page just a bit.

Before flooring (“BF”) I was a journalist and a bankruptcy litigation paralegal…useful stuff it turns out. As a journalist in the Air Force I went to crash sites, train derailments, wildfires, and missile launches, inside NORAD’s command post and missile silos. My job was to write about those experiences.

In 1982 I became a litigation paralegal specializing in complex bankruptcies…which came in handy later. My husband at the time (Ron Negley, now V.P. Ceramic and Stone at CCA Global Partners) was on a career path with …

Hi, I'm Christine [a.k.a. "C.B."] Whittemore, Chief Simplifier of Simple Marketing Now where I focus on integrating new, digital and social media based marketing with traditional marketing. I'm a practical marketer: I focus on efficient solutions to marketing and communication brand challenges with the end goal of forging stronger relationships with customers.

I've been involved in the floor covering industry ever since becoming part of the Wear-Dated carpet fiber commercial team in 2003. Before that, I was business director for the residential Wear-Dated upholstery fabric business of Solutia and marketing manager for Wear-Dated apparel.

Jim Gould and I connected when he was Chief Product Officer for CCA Global Partners. He was one of the very first people I met when I took over as national accounts manager for Wear-Dated. I never imagined then that we would continue our flooring industry discussions via the Floor Covering Institute!
When I think Floor Covering Ins…

Hello, my name is David Wootton and I am the Principal of The Wootton Group LLC, a flooring consultancy based in Atlanta, Georgia with offices in the US and UK. I specialize in strategic support services for the flooring industry.

The Wootton Group is also affiliated with The Floor Covering Institute which comprises a group of consultants with a wealth of experience in the floor covering and related industries.

As I will be starting to post on the Institute’s blog site I think it is a good idea that my first contribution tells you a little bit about myself and my experience in the floor covering industry.

In the 1980s I was living in the UK and working as Managing Director of Dinol UK, a subsidiary of a large Swedish company manufacturing chemical products for the worldwide automotive industry. The products were manufactured in Sweden and during my tenure we built a manufacturing plant in the UK to service, amongst others, Japanese car manufacturers who were also building plants to suppl…

Chinese drywall shares commonalities with flooring, particularly as it relates to VOCs.

If you’re new to the flooring industry you may be surprised to learn that last decade it was necessary for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to anoint carpet as a safe product. The proclamation was due to flawed tests perpetrated against the carpet industry by Anderson Laboratories.

But the issue isn’t dead if you search the Internet. There are still sites that support Anderson Labs. Even a "green" industry site writes “A rash of alleged health problems with carpet have yet to be properly explained, suggesting that all carpets, and especially the less expensive synthetics, should be used with great caution.”
The drywall industry is going through a similar experience.

Two major differences:
1. They’ve pinpointed it to some drywall made in China.
2. It’s true and real, and no one is suggested it isn’t destroying homes and people’s lives.

Th…

I'm Jim Gould, president of the Floor Covering Institute.

The floor covering industry is my home. It's not only engaging, rewarding and -yes- challenging, but also more interesting and fun than when I first got started 40 years ago.

I’ve seen it written that the floor covering industry is a “mature industry.” I look around and see glass back sheet vinyl, recycled carpet fiber, direct printing on laminate core board, recycled rubber and cork combined, etc. How can innovations like these be considered boring? They make this industry dynamic, exciting and constantly changing.

Someone might say, “well by ‘mature’, we mean the way products make it to market, the marketing channels.”

When I entered the industry, carpet was sold through distributors to specialty retail carpet stores and represented 80% of all floor covering sold. Wood and ceramic were sold through wood only or ceramic only craftsmen because they required such unique skills and expertise to install. There was no Internet …

Photo Credit: Brazil’s Amazon forest. (AP Photo/Renato Chalu)
If you are in any way involved in the floor covering, furniture or other wood products industries, you've heard of the Lacey Act Amendments*. However, given how much confusion surrounds these amendments, you may not have fully realized how they affect you. In Continuing Wood Trade Under the Lacey Act Amendments just published by the Floor Covering Institute, I address many of the sources of confusion.

More specfically, the article extensively researches how the U. S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) may apply the standard of “due care” when investigating allegations of illegal logging and illegal wood under the Lacey Act Amendments.

Our project was prompted by complaints from international suppliers alleging Lacey was merely restraint of trade and their ensuing requests for guidance. U.S. importers were also unsure what actions might meet the due care standard. Our goal was to determine what the government expects from the fl…

Welcome to the Floor Covering Institute's Blog - our platform for sharing thoughts about issues in the floor covering industry.

The Floor Covering Institute [FCI] is composed of distinguished and seasoned floor covering industry veterans: Stuart Hirschhorn, Lew Migliore, Chris Ramey, Carl Ruland, Christine Whittemore, David Wootton and myself, Jim Gould. We are each respected experts with a focus that complements the other.

I officially formed FCI in 2007, after leaving CCA Global Partners. I wanted to consult with a variety of companies facing all kinds of challenges using a set of skills I had developed over the years owning and managing Misco Shawnee, Color Tile and Distribution Services Inc. By surrounding myself with others who have distinguished themselves in the floor covering industry, I knew we could help a variety of clients on a wide range of issues.

During my 40 years in business, I marveled at the power of networking. One person has a question or a problem and invariably…