Page 10 - Flooring Contractor Historical

NEXT PHASE – 1999 – 2000

n April of 1999, Kim Oderkirk and her family, Jim, Lizzie and Josh headed to Orlando where the FCICA convention was taking
place. Kim had just finished merging the Detroit flooring group with the Detroit Association of Wall and Ceiling Contractors,
the southeastern Michigan chapter of AWCI, where she was the current Executive Director. Detroit was a union market and the
Iwall and ceiling association had seats on the various carpenters’ funds, many of which Kim represented the management side
of the fund on behalf of the Walls and Ceilings Association, and the smaller flooring association also wanted seats to represent their
interests. Due to the size of the group, the flooring contractors were unable to obtain seats on their own so Kim managed a merger of
the two groups and the Architectural Contractors Trade Association of Southeast Michigan (ACT) was formed. This gave the flooring
contractors, via Kim’s voice and vote, a seat at the table. Responsible for representing this new area of ACT, she looked for a national
flooring association where she could learn about flooring to help her new members in the Detroit area. She found FCICA and attended
the 1999 meeting.

Sitting at that table was David Meberg with Consolidated Carpet, the incoming Chairman of FCICA. Kim and David talked and
David discovered that Kim owned a company, Association Services that managed construction associations and asked if she would bid
on the FCICA contract. Of course, Kim did and after an interview at her location in West Bloomfield, Michigan, Kim was hired as the
Executive Vice President and started July 1 that same year and the office moved from Dalton, Georgia to West Bloomfield, Michigan.
One of the first tasks that Kim took on was rebranding the FCICA. The yellow block letter logo was replaced with a red, white and
blue FCICA logo that still remains today with a subtle change. As you can see in the first edition of the logo, the words “Floor Covering
Installation Contractors Association appears above the red tiles. It soon became apparent that if FCICA wanted merchandise with
that logo that the words needed to be replaced and “installation” de-emphasized, so a blue line replaced the words and that is still the
current logo. 

10 The Flooring Contractor Magazine Special Edition 2020