Vinyl Institute Presents Dean Thompson with Partner of the Year Award

Washington, DC, November 19, 2021-The Vinyl Institute (VI) presented Dean Thompson, executive director of the Resilient Floor Covering Institute (RFCI), with its industry partner of year award at the annual Vinyl360 conference.

The Industry Partner of the Year award recognizes allies who have made unique and valuable contributions to VI's outreach, advocacy, and education programs.

Under Thompson's leadership, RFCI has been an industry leader in sustainability and recycling. RFCI was one of the first product associations to develop product category rules and subsequent NSF/ANSI certified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). Thompson was instrumental in getting widespread acceptance of FloorScore for certification of products that are below a threshold level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from resilient floorcovering. In addition, RFCI, began a recycling pilot program nearly five years ago to study how to increase reclamation of flooring at the end of its useful life. To date, the flooring recycling efforts have been exceptional.

Stan Graveline, senior vice president of technical services of Sika Corporation-roofing, was also presented with the award. Graveline has more than 35 years of experience in the roofing industry in various technical, sales, and management capacities in Canada, Switzerland, and the U.S. Graveline has provided continued support and leadership to the Vinyl Sustainability Council (VSC), since its formation, and served as VSC Chair from 2019 to 2020.