Castellón, Spain, Apr. 1--The 2004 Tile of Spain Industry Award, formerly known as the Jerry Fisher Memorial Award, was given to Richard Johnson, Vice President of Florida Flooring Products.
The company started twenty years ago as a full line floorcovering distributor. In 1999, the firm started carrying ceramic tile in 1999. Today, tile represents one third of the company's total sales and 85% of its ceramic tile comes from Spain.
"The people in Spain are very gracious to work with and we have developed very strong relationships", said Johnson. "That is something we have to be very careful about because we guarantee our tile and, on this front, Spain's manufacturers have been very responsive", said Johnson about the need for quality standards that the American industry requires.
The award was given to Johnson by Pedro Riaza, Secretary General for ASCER, The Spanish ceramic tile manufacturers association, who spoke in praise of Johnson for his efforts to increase the presence of tile from Spain in the US market.
Johnson's partner at Florida Flooring Products Tom Goodwin and Rocamador Rubio, Director of the department of Tile, Stone and Building Materials of the Trade Commission of Spain were part of the audience.
