CTEF Honors Tile Industry Contractors with New Award

Pendleton, SC, July 26, 2021-The Ceramic Tile Education Foundation (CTEF) has announced the creation of the Dan Hecox Service Award, to be presented annually at Coverings. The first recipients are John Roberts and Woody Sanders, two Certified Tile Installers lauded for the quality of their ceramic tile installations. They received their awards at Coverings in Orlando, Florida on July 8.

Dan Hecox, CTI #1215, died at the age of 52 on September 21 of last year. Hecox, who had a reputation for tile installation excellence, was also a great supporter of the industry, routinely volunteering to help out CTEF at trade events. He also served as a CTI Evaluator to help expand the certification program, and he also promoted tile installation best practices to interior design students so they could better specify tile projects.

John Roberts, CTI #1278, is the principal of Georgia-based John Roberts Designs LLC and has been a tile setter for nearly 40 years. Woody Sanders, CTI #1295, is the principal of DW Sanders Tile & Stone, also in Georgia. He sits on the NTCA Technical, Education and Business committees.

“The mission of the Ceramic Tile Education Foundation takes on special meaning when Certified Tile Installers like Dan Hecox, John Roberts and Woody Sanders give so much of themselves to inspire other installers to become better, educate specifiers to understand the complexity of installing tile and encourage the next generations to aspire to industry best practices, methods and standards,” says Scott Carothers, CTEF director of certification and training. “The newly created Dan Hecox Service Award allows us to recognize those who-like Dan-embrace a vision of excellence for tile installation and inspire all CTIs to be part of making that vision a reality.”