Friday, May 15, 2026 from Floor Covering Weekly

Contractors, manufacturers & more come together for FCICA’s Spring Mid-Year Meeting
By Delfine Kernizan

The FCICA, The Commercial Flooring Contractors Association, kicked off its Mid-Spring Meeting with a welcome reception that brought contractors, installers and industry veterans together for burgers and bites. Attendees from Atlanta, Maryland and more networked and shared excitement for the upcoming educational sessions, product demonstrations and the Sika plant tour.

Kicking off day two of the meeting with a humorous and inspiring introduction, past FCICA chairman and current president of Synergy Flooring Pat Kelly delivered the blessing for the start of the meeting. “May your coffee stay hot, your toolbox stay full, your supervisor stay cheerful and the OSHA inspector stay three counties away,” Kelly jokingly shared as attendees laughed in agreement.

Acknowledging the challenging environment the flooring industry currently faces, Kelly shared the overall sentiment of attendees. “Everyone is interested in ‘how can we do things different and better,’ and looking for unique ways that they can improve their business, learn about new products, new technologies that can help them grow and improve their profitability, but also — and more importantly — improve the quality of service they’re offering their customers,” Kelly stated.

Of the many benefits of attending the FCICA spring mid-year meeting, collaboration is high on the list for members. “One of the main benefits that our members get is the relationships that they have with each other,” shared FCICA executive director Catherine “CJ” Church. “So it’s being able to build their relationships with other flooring contractors so they can learn best practices and share ideas.”

The keynote address, delivered by Marlene Morin, senior director of floor covering and interior finishing, Sika USA, focused on mergers and acquisitions. As the flooring industry continues to tackle challenges such as labor shortages, high turnover rates and consolidations, M&A has been top-of-mind for many business owners.

“It was a topic that speaks to the manufacturers and the contractors,” noted Church. “Also, Sika just did a big acquisition, taking over, Schonox. So, they have that great experience.” Sika’s experience with acquisitions was also met with questions and comments from the audience, breeding an educational and conversational opening session. “At FCICA, we typically try to do education topics that are non-branded, non-product focused and are related to what a project manager might need to know at one of our contractor companies, and then also the business owners,” added Church. “A lot of the people attending from the contractor businesses are going to be owners or vice president level and their project managers. So the mergers and acquisitions speaks to them, too.”

FCICA and CFI, together with FCITS and FCB2B, will host the annual Synergy Convention & Expo in Chattanooga, Tenn. this Fall.

Of the plans surrounding convention, yet to be released, the highlight will be the revised and revamped CIM (certified installation manager) Program. “One of the reasons that we paired up with CFI 4 years ago was because we work well together, we have the same mission,” shared Church. “CFI trains the installation methods and FCICA, we train more like the project managers. That’s why we work well together. Our contractor members can bring installers, learn from the education sessions that CFI is providing and see the products, too.”

The FCICA’s CIM program, started in 2015, is an authentication program for installation management. The FCICA CIM steering committee has been working to ensure the program aligns with the decade-long changes in the industry, including updating content and giving the program modules a facelift.

“The process won’t change,” Church explained. “The CIM program is available online, so anyone can do it. We also offer it in person — we call it ‘2 Days to CIM’. We go wherever there’s a need or a group of people that want to do the two-day system in-person. Oftentimes it’s a good way to do it because there is that networking component of getting project managers together.”

FCICA past chairman Pat Kelly is also looking forward to the newly revamped program, which will be released in time for the 2026 Synergy Convention & Expo this Fall. “I think we’re going to see tremendous growth, more people taking CIM and we really want our associate members and their salespeople to be exposed to the CIM program and process so they can take it out to more contractors around the country,” Kelly shared.

FCICA aims to bridge the gap between associate members and contractors by training them on what contractors do, creating an ambassadorship-like connection between the two groups. “[The goal is] just to bring our contractors and our manufacturer members, distributor members together to collaborate and network with each other,” added Church. “It’s always nice like hearing from them in person, what’s happening in their businesses so that we can think of ways that FCICA can help support them.”