Ray Anderson, founder and former chairman of flooring manufacturers Interface, has been nominated posthumously for the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Anderson, who died on August 8, 2011,  was known in environmental circles for his advanced and progressive stance on industrial ecology and sustainability.

President John F. Kennedy created the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award for exceptionally meritorious contributions to society, national security or world peace.

Leaders of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to promote and advance the concepts of sustainable production and consumption, are requesting assistance to make the nomination a reality. 

Anderson was an honors graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the school of industrial and systems engineering in 1956. He learned the carpet trade through more than 14 years at Deering, Milliken & Company and Callaway Mills. Anderson founded Interface in 1973 to produce the first free-lay carpet tiles in America.