Las Vegas—Over the past 18 months, Armstrong
World Industries has made a number of strategic structural changes in how the
company’s floor covering divisions operate. At Surfaces 2003, Chan Galbato,
president of Armstrong Worldwide Flooring Products (AFP), announced the latest
corporate moves to bring the mill’s various flooring businesses together as
one entity. “These moves bring more clarity to the job functions as well as a
fresh, unbiased perspective,” he said. “The new structure reinforces our
previous moves in an effort to increase clarity for customers, eliminate
redundancies and improve strategic and cultural alignments throughout our global
organization.”
Galbato noted the overall goal is to align the
company’s flooring divisions and manufacturing operations into a cohesive unit
which will then operate with speed and efficiency when it comes to servicing
customers. “Prior to this,” he explained, “we had three operations
reporting to me—Europe, resilient and wood. But, the reality is, there is one
company, Armstrong, with four main brands, Armstrong, Bruce, Hartco and Robbins,
and a number of sub-brands. These changes provide a holistic approach to making
everything run in unison.” As part of that, Galbato announced Armstrong will
be centering its main operations from its Lancaster, Pa., headquarters. Some
functions will remain at the company’s Dallas offices which were acquired with
the Triangle Pacific purchase. “We have to evaluate the situation; Dallas may
remain as a hub, but Lancaster is our home.” As for the personnel changes,
they are as follows:
• Frank Ready, senior vice president of
worldwide operations. He was previously senior vice president of sales and
marketing residential/commercial. In his new role, Ready is responsible for
resilient and wood products manufacturing; the sources of all products and raw
materials; product distribution, and environmental health and safety. He will
report to Galbato. Reporting to Ready are John Higgins Sr., vice president of
wood products operations, and John Fleckensein, senior vice president of
resilient flooring operations. In addition, Andreas Boettger vice president of
operations AFP Europe, will have a strong working relationship with Ready while
continuing to report to Bob Peterhaus, vice president and COO of Armstrong World
Industries ADE;
• Michael Badar, senior vice president of
North American sales and marketing. He was previously in charge of the Armstrong
Wood Products (AWP) division. Now, he is responsible for all go-to-market
functions in North America, including sales, marketing, product management,
distribution, styling and customer service. He will report to Galbato. The heads
of Armstrong’s North American flooring sales, customer service and product
management organizations will report to Badar, including Rik Born, vice
president of distributor sales; Tyrone Johnson, general manger of residential
resilient, laminate and ceramic sales; Drew Hash, general manager of residential
wood sales, Randy Gablehouse, general manger of commercial sales, Charles
Wrightson, general manager resilient flooring; Shannon Shuflat, general manager
of wood products, Roger Oates, vice president marketing, Joe Thompson, vice
president wood products, Allen Cubell, vice president of vinyl products, Kevin
Biedermann, general manger of laminate; Milton Goodwin, general manager of
ceramic; Melvin Burkhardt, general manger of new product development, and Mary
Angela Kenney, general manager of product styling and design.
• Human resources for North American and
Europe have been realigned and include: Matt Angello, senior vice president of
human resources who will be more actively engaged with AFP; John Bassett is now
vice president of human resources for North America; Ralph Spangenberg, vice
president AFP Europe human resources, and Tom Harmon has moved to vice president
of talent management and corporate human relations.
• Others continuing to report to Galbato
are: Brian Carson, innovation, engineering and quality; Craig Wirth, strategic
accounts; Jeff Nickel, AFP legal; Greg Beaudoin, IT; Deanna Cousino, process
improvement, and Dick Lentine, finance. “This is a great group of hard working
people and a great team that combines complementary knowledge in manufacturing,
marketing, sales and distribution,” Galbato said. “Together they will
achieve new synergies to help us increase the quality of our corporate
engagements.” While he praised all his executives for the jobs they have done
in the past 18 months, Galbato singled out his finance person, Lentine, as
“one of the greatest people in the world. He is a tremendous asset; he’s 62
years young and I hope he will stay and work with us until at least 75.”
—Matthew Spieler
