From left, LIFCA’s A. Graff, Mannington’s K. Campbell, J. Bianculli, and C. Capobianco.

Jericho, N.Y.— Keith Campbell, chairman of Mannington Mills, was the guest speaker at the Long Island Floor Covering Association’s (LIFCA) fundraising dinner for the Floor Covering Industry Foundation (FCIF), the non-profit organization that provides financial assistance to those in the floor covering industry who have been stricken by catastrophic circumstances such as illness.

More than 60 people were in attendance, which included a 50/50 raffle as well as other prizes donated by companies such as Allstate Rubber and Classic Tile.

The dinner, along with a previously held golf outing in which LIFCA’s board agreed to donate $1,000 of the proceeds to the Foundation, raised the association’s total contribution to $3,000.

Campbell, who was making his third appearance before the LIFCA membership, began his presentation with a passionate talk about FCIF and the good deeds it has done and continues to do for “colleagues and associates” who have fallen on life-altering hardships.

Not only did he give a rundown of FCIF’s 25-plus-year history of giving, he recognized one of its founders who was in attendance— Al Wahnon, editor and publisher of Floor Covering News, and only one of two people inducted into LIFCA’s Hall of Fame. “The FCIF today is living the vision of its founders,” Campbell said.

“I’m very proud to be in the floor covering industry,” he added. “I’ve been in it my whole life, and my family for more than 90 years. Everyone in this room is in the industry, and you have to admit that flooring has been good to us—put kids through school, gave us our homes and so on. But my definition of a strong industry is not just economically but ethically. And to have the FCIF and a place to give back to your own, that’s very special.”

The rest of his talk focused on the business side of things, particularly how the industry fared in 2006 and what he expects this year.

“Last year,” Campbell noted, “was a year of disappointment for residential and optimism on the commercial front.”

Residentially, he said, “If I could have cut the year off in May I would have been a happy guy.” Why? “In June we all saw a step down, then another step down came in September and it continued to peter down the rest of the year.”

Overall, Campbell noted the segment was down about 8% for the year, including a 4% dip in residential replacement and a 15% drop in new housing. There’s some regional bias—the Northeast was one of the hardest areas of the country hit, for example—but these figures are mostly universal.

On the flip side, “The entire commercial market was up,” Campbell noted, “around 10%. It was strong across the board.”

So how does 2007 look? Commercially, he feels the segment will continue to be strong, though not necessarily at the double-digit clip of last year. “There’s still a lot of good business to be generated so it should be up at least 5%.
“Residentially we’ll get better,” Campbell assured the audience. “I’m just not sure when; maybe we’ll see some improvements in the second half of the year as there is still a shakeout in the housing market.”

He explained the residential side was bound to get hit, especially “when it was on the ride that it was, including going through a recession.” On average, real estate climbs 11% a year, but it had been going at 25%, “so sooner or later the balloon would burst and the ride end, but this is not a 24-hour flu—and I hope it ends up being just a 48-hour one.”

It’s times like this, Campbell concluded, when businesses, including Mannington, “need to really take a stern view on how and why things are within the company and fix the stuff that needs fixing. You need to take a long-term, strategic look. It’s difficult to do this when things are running hot, so you need to use this time to right the ship in order to be prepared to ride the next wave.”