FCNews’ Matt Spieler holds the Special Recogniztion Lammy

Las Vegas—A packed room of laminate flooring enthusiasts were on hand when the North American Laminate Flooring Association (NALFA) handed out its first Lammy awards during Surfaces 2007 to recognize companies and individuals responsible for the growth of the category in the past year.

In addition to paying tribute to the people and companies who played an important role in growing the segment in 2006, NALFA also presented Matthew Spieler, senior executive editor of Floor Covering News, with a Special Recognition Lammy for his years of contribution to the laminate sector.

“We are honored to recognize the first ever recipients of the Lammy Awards,” said Peter Barretto, co-chair of NALFA’s marketing committee and a member of its board, as well as president of Torlys. “The recipients have made substantial contributions to the industry, are serving as role models to many others within the industry and truly deserve to be recognized for their efforts.”

NALFA said the Special Recognition honor “is given on a ‘warranted’ basis to those who may not necessarily fall into any of the [regular] categories but deserve recognition for their contributions.”

Spieler, who celebrated his 13th anniversary with the publication this past December, has reported on the happenings of NALFA since prior to it officially becoming a sanctioned association 10 years ago this year.

In addition, he was the first person in the U.S. floor covering trade press to write a story about laminate flooring. Even though laminate flooring came to America from Europe during 1993, it wasn’t until Spieler’s story in early 1994 when the industry began to take notice. The story, “New ‘floating floor’ lands in the United States,” was originally published in the Feb. 20th edition of FCNews.

Both Spieler and FCNews quickly recognized the growing importance laminate was having in the industry and, shortly after Surfaces 1996, he helped write and create the industry’s first special edition on laminate flooring to educate readers on the industry’s newest category. As a result of how fast the segment took off that year, he helped develop two more special issues filled with news and information on the sector.

“This is a true honor,” Spieler said. “To be given such a prestigious award for something I love doing is special. But, I couldn’t have achieved this without the foresight of FCNews’ owners, Al Wahnon and Mike Blick, who also recognized the potential of laminate from the beginning and allowed me to cover the category in depth.”

Seven winners

In addition to the Special Recognition award, NALFA handed out six other Lammys. Originally, NALFA’s board of directors nominated individuals and organizations at random. After being compiled, the nominees were voted on by NALFA members and the editors of Floor Covering News, Floor Focus, National Floor Trends and Floor Covering Weekly. The process to determine a Special Recognition recipient was done solely by the board.

The winners of the first Lammys were as follows:

Person of the Year— Juan Flores, Fausfloor
Member of the Year— Bill Dearing, NALFA’s president
Associate Member of the Year—Jack Boesch, M.P. Global Products
Distributor/Retailer of the Year—Herrigan Distributing
Regular Member Company of the Year—Fausfloor
Associate Member Company of the Year—M.P. Global Products

Barretto said the Lammys were created to not only honor the people and companies making a difference in the category but to help raise awareness of the organization and its Certification Seal. This insignia is a benchmark of quality established by NALFA to help consumers select products that will meet their everyday needs.

To earn the Seal a company must submit its products to a third party lab so it can be tested to see if it meets a minimum set of quality guidelines when it comes to performance.

The Seal can be earned by NALFA members as well as non-members so long as the product is tested by a NALFA-certified lab.

For more information about NALFA and its programs, call 202.785.9500.