Hardwood Floors E-News - 4/30/2007

ProTeam Inc. (Washington, D.C.) recently donated 50 HEPA filtration vacuums to public housing residents at Potomac Gardens Apartments in Washington, D.C., as part of a large-scale collaborative effort with the National Capital Asthma Coalition and the University of Columbia Cooperative Extension Service to reduce asthma triggers.

Oneida Vac System’s (Syracuse, N.Y.) Cyclonic Dust Containment System was featured on episode #2615 of PBS’s "This Old House - East Boston Project."

BonaKemi USA (Aurora, Colo.) was awarded the Golden Hammer Award from Home Channel News for its commitment in support of retailer sales, marketing and partnership efforts.

Middle Tennessee Lumber Company (Burns, Tenn.) raffled off a Remington 870 12-gauge magnum turkey gun to Dave Jensen of National Wood Products (Salt Lake City) at the NWFA Convention held April 10-13 in Denver.

Erickson’s Flooring & Supply (Ferndale, Mich.) now carries North Wood Flooring (Coleman, Wis.) products. North Wood Flooring manufactures unfinished specialty flooring in northern oak, maple and other species.

Floor Style Products (Sparks, Nev.) received the Distributor of the Year Award from Clarke American Sanders (Springdale, Ark.) at the recent NWFA show. This was the second consecutive year Floor Style has won the honor.

Hoboken Floors (Hoboken, N.J.) has been selected one of House & Garden’s best flooring sources by more than 20,000 design professionals participating in the magazine’s 2007 survey.

Surfaces, which will be held January 29-February 1, 2008, needs knowledgeable and experienced educators in the floor covering industry to present conference sessions. For more information, visit www.surfaces.com. The Master’s Craft (West Plains, Mo.) has added Aiton Fialla as manager for its South American Import Division headquartered in Curitiba, Brazil. Fialla most recently worked for Cikel Brasil Verde S.A.

ProTeam Inc. has hired Tracy Elliot as customer service manager. Elliot oversees communications and orders with distribution partners, departmental training and development, and sales leads coordination.

Barefoot Flooring Inc. (Troy, Pa.) has appointed Peter A. Scolari sales manager for the U.S. and Canada. Scolari has been with Barefoot Flooring for five years and can be contacted at 570/297-3200, on his cell phone at 607/857-3168 or by e-mail at [email protected]. The company has also added Mary Blankenship to its sales force. Blankenship has more than 20 years’ experience in the flooring industry, and most recently worked for Boen Hardwood Flooring. She can be contacted at 273/252-3500 or at [email protected].

Total housing starts for March 2007 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,218,000 units, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This is 2.0 percent above the February 2007 figure of 1,194,000 units.

New residential sales of single-family houses in March 2007 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 858,000 units, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. This is 2.6 percent above the revised February rate of 836,000 units but is 23.5 percent below the March 2006 estimate of 1,121,000.

The overall National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) declined three points from 36 in March to 33 in April. The other three indices also fell from March. The index gauging sales expectations for the next six months dropped six points to 44, the index measuring current sales of new single-family homes fell three points to 33, and the index measuring traffic of prospective buyers fell a single point to 27.

The NWFA will hold an Engineered Installation School May 11 at its training facility in St. Louis. For more information, e-mail [email protected] or visit www.nwfa.org.

Erickson’s Flooring & Supply will hold an open house May 9 to celebrate the grand opening of its new Chicago location at 570 Mitchell Road, Glendale Heights, IL 60139. For more information, call Stephanie at 800/225-9663, ext. 1129.

The Australian Timber Flooring Association will hold three-day inspector training courses in Melbourne, Australia, May 22-24; in Perth, Australia, June 11-13; and Sydney, Australia July 23-25. For more information, visit www.atfa.com.au.

The INSTALL Floor Covering Conference will take place May 3 in Las Vegas at the International Training Facility of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters. For more information, contact Michelle Merlo at [email protected].

Blastrac Global (Oklahoma City) has updated its Web site at www.blastrac.com. The previous issue of Hardwood Floors’ E-News failed to include Mike DeFreise of Norton Abrasives in the list of recipients of NWFA degrees at the convention in Denver. DeFreise received the Vanguard Degree. The NWFA has now partnered with YRC Regional Transportation as part of its member shipping program. Members can now save at least 52 percent on comprehensive, best-in-class services including regional, inter-regional, expedited, guaranteed, truckload, consolidation and distribution, and cross-border between the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. For more information, call 800/MEMBERS or contact the NWFA by phone at 800/422-4556 (U.S.), 800/848-8824 (Canada) or 636/519-9663 (local and international) by e-mail at [email protected] or visit www.nwfa.org.