Honoring:
Sy Cohen, Founder & Chairman of Stanton Carpet
Dan Frierson, Chairman & CEO of Dixie Group
Roger Marcus, Chairman & CEO of American Biltrite
The 2024 FCIF Gala in the iconic Gotham Hall, New York City was an unforgettable evening, bringing together an incredible group of people across the industry to celebrate three esteemed leaders.
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Sy Cohen
Sy Cohen, the founder and current executive chairman of Stanton Carpet, has been an industry fixture for more than 50 years, launching the company for which he is known in 1980. But his roots are in retail. Cohen founded Country Carpet in 1972 as a trade showroom on Long Island selling moderate to better-end carpet products to interior designers. As the business flourished Cohen saw the opportunity to offer more decorative, proprietary products for his clients. In 1978 he visited Domotex Germany to source products and deliver on his vision. Among the first products were wool flatweaves from Denmark and Belgium, a perfect fit for his clients. Cohen started supplying proprietary products to differentiate and accelerate Country Carpet's growth. “The good thing was it was proprietary; the bad thing was you had to buy a lot of it,” Cohen recalled. The strategy was working, Country Carpet was selling exclusive products, gaining higher margins while exciting the client base. The challenge: selling the inventory through one showroom. Cohen began to contact his dealer friends and a few agents throughout the Northeast. He knew instinctively better end flooring showrooms could sell his product. A new idea was born. Tapping his roots from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Cohen formed Stanton Carpet in 1980. In the beginning the product portfolio was small, two wool/acrylic blends and a flatwoven wool/nylon. Within a year Cohen added three more products and never looked back. Throughout the last four and a half decades, Stanton grew into a decorative powerhouse, supplying over 800 carpet products across multiple brands. Stanton utilized a combination of organic growth with instrumental launches like "The Wilton Gallery" in the mid ‘90s and strategic acquisitions including Antrim, Rosecore and Crescent to fuel its growth. Today, the company also offers decorative hard surface products. Stanton, under Cohen's leadership, has been a true pioneer and frequently credited with being the first and still the most formidable supplier of high-end woven products to the better-end retail community around the U.S. and Canada.
Dan Frierson
For nearly six decades, Dan Frierson has been one of the flooring industry’s most prominent executives, a career that dates to 1966 when he first joined Dixie Yarns, to the present as chairman of The Dixie Group. Following in the footsteps of his father, J. Burton Frierson, who came to Dixie in 1925, Dan Frierson paid his dues in the beginning, working every job in the plant and operations during the early years before being appointed CEO in 1980 and chairman in 1986.In the early 1990s, it became clear that Dixie’s customers would be heading overseas searching for lower cost alternatives to apparel manufacturing. To ensure the survival of the company, Frierson led the challenge of transforming the business from a textile company to a carpet company. Dixie purchased Masland Carpets in 1993; as Frierson recalled, “We had been selling them yarn for 40 years and we had talked in the ’80s about maybe trying to get together.” This gave Dixie a foothold in the carpet business. From 1993 to 2000, Dixie made more than a dozen carpet-related acquisitions and divested its textile and apparel assets. The big one came in 2000 when Dixie acquired Fabrica International. The deal helped secure Dixie’s brand as a luxury floor covering manufacturer and further burnished Dan Frierson’s credentials as a leading flooring executive who was not afraid to take risks. The Dixie Group has been a staunch supporter of FCIF for many years. Frierson received two degrees from The University of Virginia, a B.A. in History and an M.B.A. Frierson lives with his wife of 60 years in Chattanooga, Tenn., and has five children and nine grandchildren.
Roger Marcus
Roger Marcus’ floor covering industry career spans nearly 60 years, presiding over his family business, American Biltrite, for the past four decades. The Marcus family story begins after World War II when his father, Robert, as president of American Tile Co., took the company that would later be known as Amtico from manufacturing rubber heels and soles to rubber flooring. The major move came in the early 1950s when they started making thermoplastic vinyl floor tile. The company would be the first to chemically emboss, cut, and register VCT tile. The company would soon develop the first no-wax floor tiles in 1969. All the while, Roger was rising through the ranks, beginning as a sales rep in 1967 upon graduating from Boston University. He became CEO in 1983 and oversaw the merger of Congoleum in 1992. As CEO of Congoleum, he was involved in launching a litany of innovative products, including DuraStone, DuraCeramic, Ultima and ArmorGuard. At one time the company was doing over $250 million. Roger has also donated his time and efforts to associations that forward the industry. He has served multiple terms as president of the Resilient Floor Covering Institute, and has been chairman of the Floor Covering Industry Foundation’s grant committee for many years. In addition, his company has been a corporate donor to FCIF since the beginning, and Roger personally planned the first three FCIF galas. His combined impact of donations and fundraising equal a lifetime impact of over $1 million to FCIF.
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