Future Focus Awards Young Carpet Professionals Recognition at Surfaces 2012

Future Focus winner Mollie Allen Surratt with Jason Surratt

Future Focus Awards: The Future of Carpet is in Good Hands - Several Young Professionals from CRI Member Companies Recognized for Leadership

At the 2012 Surfaces flooring industry trade show  held recently in Las Vegas, I attended a special awards breakfast to announce the winners of the first-annual Future Focus awards. 

Sponsored by Floor Focus magazine in partnership with 3M Scotchgard, the awards recognize talented young (35 and under – counts me out) professionals in the floor covering industry. I was pleased to see several CRI member companies represented in this year’s winners.

• In the sales category, Keaton McFarland of Gulistan Carpet  earned honorable mention.

• In the marketing category, Shaw Industries’ Mollie Allen Surratt, earned first prize and Shaw’s international marketing manager Megha Shah  received the honorable mention.

• In the human resources category, Shaw Industries again swept the category, with corporate diversity manager Lisa Rodriguez Buice earning first place and human resources manager Sandra Johnson earning honorable mention.

• Shaw designer Ashley Olson took the top prize in the research and development category.

• In the sustainability category, Kimberly Matsoukas, sustainability manager at Bentley Prince Street earned honorable mention.

• And in the manufacturing category, Shaw production manager Wayne Gerber, was given the Future Focus award, while Shaw’s process improvement manager Roderick MacLeod, received the honorable mention.

[See Magazine cites seven at Shaw for excellence in floorcovering from The Dalton Daily Citizen.]

According to Floor Focus publisher Kemp Harr, the Future Focus Awards are modeled after contests conducted in the advertising world. The idea was first proposed by flooring industry consultant Paul Friederichsen. 

I’m so proud of these young professionals. They work hard and manage to juggle the challenges of marriage and families, graduate school, first homes, and everything else they are dealing with at this busy and fruitful time of their lives. Better yet, they make it look easy.

Congratulations to the winners and to the CRI member companies that hired them!

Bethany