The Floor Covering Education Foundation (FCEF) is making significant strides in addressing the industry's labor shortage. In just three years, the organization has established flooring installation programs in 18 colleges across 10 states, with plans to expand to 200 colleges within five years. The FCEF has awarded 410 scholarships totaling nearly half a million dollars, with an impressive 82% of graduates entering the flooring industry.
Despite these successes, the foundation faces challenges in industry awareness and financial support.
We spoke with FCEF Executive Director Jim Aaron and Kaye Whitener, director of operations, dig into the details of the organization’s success and challenges—and what the industry needs to do next for continued growth. The following are excerpts of our conversation, which you can listen to in its entirety below.
Floor Trends & Installation: Tell us about Floor Covering Education Foundation.
Jim Aaron: You have to look at our mission statement and objective. Number one, it's to increase the awareness of the career pathways of flooring installation. Number two, to recruit new people into the career pathway as flooring installers. Number three, to connect those individuals to training, industry-recognized training. Next, scholarship that training. Provide scholarship dollars for that training where it costs a little or nothing after that training takes place. Finally, connect those individuals to jobs if they need assistance with job placement. And to be quite frank with you, to increase the awareness of the career pathways was actually not initially part of our mission and objective, but we realized early on that was probably going to be our biggest issue.
We started talking to high school seniors and people in high school, and we just realized that individuals can't choose this career path if they don't consider it. They can't consider it if they're not even aware of it. And I'm telling you, they're not. We've done enough discussions. They're just not aware of it. And I think that's on all of us. It's on our entire industry. Collectively, we have done a horrible job of talking about what a good, stable career path this can be, and quite frankly, a lucrative career path. So that's one of the biggest challenges we've faced from the get-go.
Floor Trends & Installation: Tell us about your wins so far.
Aaron: It's been about three years. I came on as executive director in early 2021. And you know, we had a lot to do. The foundation didn't really exist the way it does today. We kind of had to build the foundation of a foundation. Everything had to be built - all the processes, all the procedures, the websites, the application process, all of it. But going back to that mission statement, you talk about connecting individuals to industry-sponsored training. Let's talk about that for a moment. You talk about rewinding. Our training partners right now are CFI, NWFA, CTEF, and aft advanced flooring technologies. They all do a great job, but they don't do a lot of training on the road. They're not nationwide.
If you ask a guy to become a flooring installer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you're going to tell him he's got to go to one of these locations out of state when he can stay right there in his own state, probably in his own town, and go to training to become a plumber, HVAC technician, electrician, all of those things. We realized that everything has to be local. Training has to be local. Recruiting has to be local. That's the biggest thing. It's the biggest epiphany.
How do we take training local? Well, you do that with going to community colleges and technical colleges. We all know that community colleges and technical colleges are already offering those courses in what we call blue collar trades, construction-related trades, plumbing, electrical, HVAC. We're not a training organization. We don't write curriculum. We don't own curriculum. We had to rely on the training partners to do that. We worked with those training partners to develop that basic floor covering installation course of study that we piloted at Georgia Northwest Technical College in Dalton, Georgia, at the end of 2021.
Kaye Whitener: The program is for anybody who may have an interest in coming into the flooring industry. It is an introductory level course, but it's 300 contact hours, which is about ten weeks. We go through carpet installation, hardwood installation, resilient flooring, sheet goods as well as LVP, tile installation, safety, measuring, and floor preponderance. It is a great, well-rounded introduction. When students come through this 10 weeks, even though they're not ready yet to be an installer on their own, they are an advanced helper. They probably have had more training than the majority of helpers in our industry.
We started the very first pilot in January of 2022, and then finished it out with our second pilot in 2022.
Aaron: We’ve expanded that to many different locations in many different states. What's our biggest win? We've had a lot of wins, and we're very proud of that. We're kind of independent in the way that we are an organization that was able to bring these training organizations together and say, "Hey, guys, let's work together to create something bigger than ourselves. Let's work together to create this thing that can be replicated and duplicated." That was a big win, taking that course content and having it accredited. That course content was submitted for accreditation, and it was accredited. I call them industry firsts, and we've achieved a lot of industry firsts. It's the program in the technical colleges having that program accredited. It's now in multiple states and in multiple different colleges.
Floor Trends & Installation: How many colleges are you running the program in right now?
Whitener: Beth, by the time we finished out 2023, which was our very first year of other colleges running the program outside of the pilot program, we had five colleges running. We had three in Georgia, one in Tennessee, and one in Iowa. As of right now, we have 18 colleges, and that's just the first six months of 2024. So, you can see the interest that is there. We've got 10 states that are encompassing those 18 colleges. It's amazing to walk and talk with these schools who are hungry for this kind of involvement from industries. They're desperate for support. They've been amazing to open up their classrooms and work with us, and they're excited about the progress.
One of the issues, or challenges, that we have in the very beginning is awareness. Recruiting has been quite interesting because the colleges are, you know, expecting to recruit like they typically do for most all of their classes, and then not realizing that people are not aware of our industry at all. We spend a lot of time with each of these colleges to help them ensure that they have a successful program. But I'm proud of that 18 colleges. There's a possibility there could be a few more added by the end of the year. We've got our hands full handling what we have right now. The objective is in the next five years to be in all states and be able to be supported by all of our flooring professionals in each of the states.
Floor Trends & Installation: What does it really take from a financial and logistical standpoint to make this happen? You have such a small team, so there's so much happening behind the scenes that folks aren't seeing.
Aaron: Remember: we're a 501(c)(3). We're a private foundation. We're not a public foundation. You think of public foundations, those are the United Way, St. Jude's, and those others. They're great organizations. They're public because the public donates to them, and they benefit the public. We're considered a private foundation because most of our donations come from within the industry and it benefits an industry. Our donations come from within the industry, and that's really our only method of survival outside of grants.
We were blessed with donations from some manufacturers in the early days of the formation, as well as the World Floor Covering Association. And that sustained us for the first four years. We've had lots of other suppliers come on board as well. But listen, we've only scratched the surface in regards to support from the industry. It takes a lot to do this. When you talk about what it takes to set up each college, you're talking about resources regarding tools, supplies, materials, and all those kind of things. You're talking probably $50,000.
Whitener: Well, that's just your startup materials and startup tools and all of that. If you add in the fact that we give scholarship dollars, you've got another $20,000 that we support the school with, or the students really, with the ability to have the tuition. But we're not alone in that.
Most industries that are successful going to the education platforms are giving a lot of money, time, and energy and resources to ensure that the quality of the training of the new talent coming in meets the specifications required by those industries. They're staying active with it. So, we know that electrical, plumbing, all of that's been a part of the education platforms for a long time. But also realizing that this is a new generation that is now hungry for the trades, it gives us an opportunity to compete with them, but we have to all come together. It's too heavy of a load for one group to carry on their own. But if we spread it over, everybody and everybody helps contribute, we all win.
Aaron: Kaye and I are floor covering people. We've been in the flooring industry all of our life. And this venture, so to speak, into the education side of things, working with technical and community colleges, secondary education is new to us, and we've learned a lot. One of the things that really blew my mind is learning just how other industries have been financially supporting the recruitment and training of the next generation of workers for decades. This is new to our industry. People don't get it yet. Maybe that's why some people have been hesitant to donate or support it.
But guys, we're already behind the eight-ball compared to all these other industries. They've been doing it for years. It's just common practice. It not as an expense, but an necessary investment in the future. And we've got to get to that point industry-wide. And when I say industry-wide, I mean all corners of the industry.
Floor Trends & Installation: Not only are you guys introducing the program into the college and getting it up and running, but you're also continuing support even after it's going, so time-wise it is incredible. And then financially, logistics, I mean, there's just so many steps, there's so many moving parts that people aren't seeing the college.
Whitener: If a college runs the program three times a year with eight students and our max scholarship dollars, you're looking at $60,000 in support financially that the foundation has to cover for tuition. Not counting the time and the effort to make sure that the local retailers, the local flooring companies are involved. I feel like we're a bridge. We are driving this from a national level. This is really the only way it's going to be successful.
Our local retailers, our local dealers, our local distributors, our local flooring professionals, our other installation crews have to be involved with their local colleges to ensure the quality of training is being met. And then also, the support. I mean, we know every retailer out there has open box boxes in their warehouses or remnants and stuff that they can donate to the schools. It takes a lot of materials to train.
Floor Trends & Installation: Who are some of the retailers who are actively supporting FCEF?
Aaron: Oh, well, you know, listen. You got to call out folks like Don Roberts at Don's Carpet One. He's not on a board right now because he had his hands in too many things, but he's probably one of the hardest working guys in the flooring industry. He's been an art supporter from the very beginning. He was one of the guys that helped put this together. He donates monthly. He writes a column for Floor Covering Weekly, and he's challenged independent flooring retailers to donate monthly like he does. His challenge has been to donate $100 per month automatically on your credit card to the foundation and do it per location. Don has five locations, and he donates $500 a month to the foundation.
We have a lot of other retailers doing that as well—a lot. When you take a look at an Excel list, but then when you compare it to the fact that there's 10,000 independent retailers across the US, we're not even at one half of 1%. There's a lot of room to grow there. I want to ask you, as an independent retailer, if you listen to this right now, really, what is $100 going to mean to you at the end of the month? If 1,000 of you guys do it, it will mean the world to this industry. Don's Carpet One, you got to call him out. He's been fantastic.
You’ve got to mention Deb DeGraff at DeGraff Interiors in Michigan. Donnie Phillips at Atlanta Flooring and Design has been fantastic. They've shown up at a lot of our dealer meetings and also donated a lot of material. But listen, I could go on. We've got a lot of retailers that have really supported us. There's room for more. Come on, guys, we need everybody. This is all hands on deck.
Floor Trends & Installation: For those who are choosing not to support, what's their reasoning?
Aaron: Honestly, I think the pain point hasn't gotten to them yet. Listen, you can say that for a retailer, or you can say that for a manufacturer, or you can say that for a distributor. I had a conversation with a guy at a while back. I was talking about a couple of different distributors that had not donated to us financially. And he said, "Well, you know why they haven't donated?" And I said, "Well, I think I know, but tell me your opinion." He says, "Well, because their comp numbers are good." I said, "Tell me what you mean about that." He goes, "Well, if comp numbers are good, everything's right with the world. If they're doing good compared to last year, that's all that matters. They don't deal with what's right in front of their face. Until this is a fire alarm issue, it's not going to get their attention, Jim. It's not going to get their attention until their sales start to decrease and they can tie that decrease to this issue." And I said, "Buddy, trust me, I have lived it. I have studied this for the last three years. And I know for a fact that if that is the case, that will be too late. You cannot wait on this.”
Kaye and I have studied it. We've researched it. We've seen what other industries are doing. The storm is coming. The old adage is, "When is it a crisis?" Is it a crisis when they tell you a storm is bearing down on your town and it's coming? No doubt it's coming, or is it a crisis once it's already hit? I would tell you it's a crisis once you know it's coming. And I'm telling you, it's coming. People better wake up and look. We're here to help, but we need, like that old saying, "help us help you." That's what we're here to do.
Floor Trends & Installation: We’ve received comments like, "I think it needs to be more of a grassroots effort" or "the national association model isn't working." What’s your response to comments like those?
Aaron: I would say if you make a comment like that, you probably ought to give us a call and find out what we're doing, because that's exactly what we're doing. We believe that everything has a local component. In fact, the local component is the most important component. Yes, grassroots. We can't do this without grassroots. We have a very lean, small team. We can't be in every corner of the U.S. We rely on independent flooring retailers and people in the local towns that are raising their hand and say, "Hey, I'll be your advocate in my town. What do I do?" We're here to help you and show you what you do. We have those plans. We have a plan laid out. We have a model that you can follow that's been proven.
Yes, it does require grassroots. And you talk about national associations or things like that. The national association just helps us. We're supported by the World Floor Covering association. They started our foundation. But listen, we're a national foundation. We cover the entire US, and there's things we can do, we will do on a national level. But again, the magic happens locally, and we're here to help people make that magic happen locally.
Whitener: Well, and I would also dispute the fact that anybody would say it's not working. Honestly, if we look at what has happened in three years and what having a team that can focus 24/7 on this, and believe me, that's what we're a team of four, but what we've been able to accomplish is because of two things.
First of all, the initial support of the industry, getting it up and running, getting everything moving forward, having the partnerships with amazing training partners like we do, and having them come alongside of us and help us build this program out. Third, today is the day. Now is the time. We won't get this moment back if we're not successful.
The bigger fear for me is that we put all this work, we put all the time and all the energy and money into succeeding, and we are. We've got the data. We've recruited 410 students in our time doing this. We have got some stories that we're working on to share with you because we now have some data from some of our students who have graduated and are working in the industry that we're excited to really kind of share with everybody to show that, yes, we took the theory, we took the 41 years of having a conversation about a problem. We put it into action, and now we're seeing the results of that. It's just not going to happen overnight. We're not trying to throw something against the wall. We're trying to build a bridge that brings a new generation into our industry.
We're focused right now on installation because that's our pain point at this moment. But the fact is that we're bringing awareness to the floor covering industry in every aspect. Getting these doors open at the colleges and getting these programs up and running are what we call umbrella courses. We can come in and we can add all kinds of things to it once we've got the door open and we're supporting it. Just think about how we can move forward in the future with attracting new, quality talent to our industry.
Aaron: So a couple of things real quick, Beth. If a retailer is listening and they're probably thinking, "Okay, well, this college program sounds good. How do I get it in my area? How do I get it in my neighborhood?" Well, great question. And I would tell you, it starts with you. Honestly, you talk about this grassroots thing. If you're local and you've got a community college or technical college, I would say that you probably need to make the connection. Let's make that connection together and let's talk about that program. Let's talk about implementing that program there. Help us make that introduction. Because listen, a lot of times the colleges will listen to you if you're local, because I've made phone calls to colleges before from another state, and they don't know who I am. They don't know who the Floor Covering Education Foundation is. But if you're local, they listen to you. If you're a business owner and you can share, "Hey, I've got this need. I've got this issue. Would you mind giving my friends at the Floor Covering Education Foundation a few minutes on the phone to talk about their program?" And we'll have you on the call. We'll take it from there. Whether we have a program in your town or not, here's one thing you can do is go to your local high schools. You know John Stier very well, Beth, but John's a great example. He's a CFI certified installer in Algona, Iowa. John donates some of his time every semester to go visit his local high schools and go to the shop class and expose the kids there to flooring installation. So a question for the flooring retailers in the audience there. When's the last time you've done that? When's the last time you've even thought about doing it? We're finding more and more high schools are bringing back shop class. That's a good thing. And those instructors are thirsty and hungry for content like this. They will jump on the opportunity to have you come in, you and your installer, and expose those students to a career in flooring installation.
Floor Trends & Installation: Give us some numbers.
Whitener: At the end of July, we had 410 scholarships. We have 18 colleges. I think we've spent almost a half a million dollars in funded scholarships. Right now, we have 82% of the students that have gone through the program have ended up in the industry. We're working on some things right now that we can really kind of introduce our industry to some of our students.
Floor Trends & Installation: How do you see this moving forward?
Whitener: We want to be in 200 technical colleges— at least—in five years. That number will help us hit the deficit numbers that we're seeing. But the reality is, if we cannot financially move forward, then we're not going to meet those goals. If we have the financial support, we're going to meet and exceed those goals.
We also are looking at grants, federal grants. We have the grant in Alabama that we were awarded last year. We've been able to work with their team. I'm excited about how we can support these programs through grants, but our industry has to be ready to step up, and we have some different ways they can support us. Our goal is to keep going until flooring becomes an industry that's considered at every level of a career pathway.
Aaron: People need to understand that we can't do what we're doing without those funds. We're a private foundation. If we're going to survive, the funds have to come from within the organization or from within the industry. I would ask you, if you're a flooring retailer, consider strongly the $100 per month donation. It's easy to do. Go to fcef.org. There's a donate now button. Click on that donate now button from there. It's very intuitive.
Secondly, I would tell you that Cali used to be called Cali Bamboo. Doug Jackson is the president now, and it just goes by Cali. They have a program where you can opt in to adding a penny per foot. It's only a penny, guys. It's one penny per foot. They could have added that in as a price increase. In fact, why don't you pretend it's a price increase? Opt in for the penny a foot, just let it pass on through. And now you're donating that without even thinking about it to the FCEF.
