Washington, DC, November 19, 2021-The Vinyl Institute (VI) presented the Resilient Floor Materials Institute (RFCI) Executive Director Dean Thompson with the Industry Partner of the 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 is one of the first product associations to formulate product category rules and subsequent NSF/ANSI certified environmental product declarations (EPD). Thompson helps make FloorScore widely accepted for certification of products below the threshold level of volatile organic compounds (VOC) for resilient floor coverings. In addition, nearly five years ago, RFCI started a recycling pilot program to study how to increase the recycling rate at the end of the life of the floor. So far, floor recycling has been excellent.

Stan Graveline, senior vice president of roofing technical services for Sika Corporation, also received the award. Graveline has more than 35 years of technical, sales and management experience in the roofing industry in Canada, Switzerland and the United States. Since its establishment, Graveline has been providing continuous support and leadership to the Vinyl Sustainability Council (VSC). In 2020, he will be the chairman of VSC. 

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