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Editorial
Retailer of the Year
Draperies & Window Coverings congratulates Bruce Heyman, Metropolitan Window Fashions, on being selected our first Retailer of the Year!
The D&WC staff gratefully thanks the many window coverings dealers who sought this distinction. We were so happy to learn there are many candidates deserving this recognition, and urge and encourage them to keep reminding us as we move forward making the Retailer of the Year selection an annual event. But in numerous conference calls and uncountable e-mails among us we found one name kept surfacing—in large part because of his successful years in business, his dedication to the industry, and his involvement in the local communities in which he operates.
Even the briefest dossier on Bruce Heyman reveals much: He is the third-generation owner of a company that now boasts four retail locations in New Jersey and New York and 100 employees, whom Heyman credits as being his support network. With annual sales of over $1 million a year, Metropolitan Window Fashions offers fabric, custom hard and soft window coverings, ready-mades, bedding and more. He emphasizes professionalism in his business and brought that same goal to a four-year term as president of the Window Coverings Association of American (WCAA). Heyman also helped found the WCAA New Jersey chapter and has served on the association’s national board of directors.
Locally, Heyman continues in community services, which dates back to when his grandfather ran the company. Metropolitan Window Fashions has donated fabric and has volunteered labor to create soft pillows for soldiers in the Middle East, quilts for AIDS infants in local hospitals, and clothing for underprivileged children. The company offers tours to Brownie and Girl Scout programs, presents design seminars for community groups and awards $1,500 in gift certificates to the most talented design students in five area high schools.
Taken together, Metropolitan Window Fashions represents what’s best about the window coverings industry and why it becomes such a strong part of the lives of those in it. This year, the spotlight falls on Heyman as an example others can (and do) emulate. D&WC looks forward to discovering all those outstanding retailers—big and small, urban or rural, with large staffs or solo—that, in their own ways, do the same.
Congratulations to Bruce Heyman, and congratulations to all the window coverings success stories!
Howard Shingle |
