Carpet One Winter Convention Celebrates 20th Anniv

Grapevine, TX, February 15--Just 20 years ago, Carpet One held what would become their first annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia with a small but progressive group of floor covering retailers. Carpet One’s three founders – Howard Brodsky, Alan Greenberg and Sandy Mishkin – shared a vision: to form a cooperative of floor covering retailers that would enjoy increased buying power and market clout together, giving them the ability to compete against big box retailers, while maintaining their independence. Since 1985, Brodsky, Greenberg and Mishkin have turned their original vision into a reality, building the largest floor covering retailer in North America. Though there were challenges along the way, Carpet One has grown into one of the most dynamic and powerful leaders in the floor covering industry. In the past twenty years, Carpet One has grown from its 10 original charter members to over 700 members with more than 1,000 locations. They’ve expanded into Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Yearly sales have grown from $25 million in 1985, to over $3.3 billion last year. At their 2005 Winter Convention, Carpet One celebrated their anniversary by looking back and looking forward. They took the time to recognize their accomplishments and growth, while also holding special break-out sessions of 200 members each designed to develop a 5-year plan for the future of Carpet One. "This is a very important year for us," explained Evan Hackel, president of Carpet One. "We are celebrating a truly exceptional twenty years of growth and innovation – but we also need to look to the future. In the next twenty years, we want to continue to make improvements so that our members can expand and refine their individual businesses and Carpet One can remain a powerful force in the floor covering industry."