American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame inductees for 2020 include: Top Row: Irv Blumkin, CEO of Nebraska Furniture Mart, Bob Maricich, chairman and CEO of IMC. Bottom Row: Robert G Culp III, co-founder of Culp Inc., Allan H. Palecek, chairman and founder of Palecek, and Todd Wanek, CEO and president of Ashley Furniture Industries.
HIGH POINT, NC -- The American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame Foundation has announced the five industry leaders to be inducted into its Hall of Fame on Oct. 17, 2020 at the fall High Point Market.
Inductees to the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame include Irv Blumkin CEO of Nebraska Furniture Mart, Robert G. Culp III, co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Culp Inc., Robert J. Maricich, chairman and CEO of International Market Centers, Allan H. Palecek of Palecek, and Todd Wanek, CEO and president of Ashley Furniture Industries.
The American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc. was founded on February 22, 1988 by a group of executives who recognized the need to preserve the heritage of the home furnishings industry and to honor its leaders. As an international industry-wide organization, its mission is three-fold: to honor our leaders, tell the industry story and inspire a new class of leaders. The Foundation notes that there was no written history of the industry until the Hall of Fame started compiling a timeline history of its cultural, economic and artistic development in the United States. Its growing collection of historical memorabilia includes documents, photographs, objects, and a library of books.
The foundation honors home furnishings leaders through induction into the American Home Furnishings Hall of Fame, the industry's highest honor. The annual Induction Celebration held each October includes a gathering of more than 1,200, a Pinning Ceremony at the Wall of Fame and installation of a permanent brick in the Walk of Fame. As an integral part of the foundation's history initiative, inductees are invited to share their stories in an extensive oral interview, which is conducted, edited, and published by the Hall of Fame. This initiative forms part of a broader "Tell Us Your Story" project, which seeks to preserve the history of the industry at all levels, across all facets, and through multiple mediums.
The third part of the group's mission is to inspire a new class of innovation and leadership. Each year, the foundation introduces the industry to a world-class speaker and recognizes 10 Future Leaders. These promising young leaders engage in small one-on-one dinner discussions with inducted members of the Hall of Fame and are encouraged to connect with each other.
A new permanent home will be a place to gather, to teach and to inspire. The foundation has engaged a leading exhibit design firm to help it cultivate a series of informative exhibits about the history and future of the home furnishings industry so that when people visit High Point and say, "I want to see the Home Furnishings Capital of the World," the city city will have a world-class destination to tell the High Point Market story. It includes a stunning Celebration Hall complete with a massive Story Wall that can accommodate large public gatherings, meetings and celebrations of special life events, and a tech-savvy executive boardroom for 50 people.