The Floor Covering Leadership Council (FCLC) members have voted to disband the FCLC effective immediately. 

In January, 2018, the Floor Covering Leadership Council (FCLC) commissioned an independent research firm to conduct a multi-phase study to quantify the scope and severity of the lack of installation professionals on the flooring industry’s sustainability and growth. A Chicago-based research firm, The Blackstone Group Inc., was contracted to conduct the research, whose quantitative component focused on businesses that purchased workers’ services by engaging floor covering installers as direct employees and/or subcontractors in 2017. A total of 334 executives, representing floor covering contractors, retailers, workrooms, and installation businesses across 45 of the 50 states, participated.

According to Kim Oderkirk, former FCLC secretary “With the formation of the new Floor Covering Education Foundation (FCEF), there is not a reason for the FCLC to exist.”  Therefore, a vote of the current FCLC members was taken and unanimously voted to disband the council.  Oderkirk, who was the liaison between the council and Blackstone Group, stated that the FCLC owned the research and in an act of goodwill and best wishes for the FCEF to succeed has entrusted the research to them.