Editorial

Of Life and Work

We are very pleased to bring you two important and exciting stories this month—two that stand out from the others for special reasons. One is about making the most of our life experiences. The other is about making the most of our work experiences. Several months ago, Bob Lee approached us about an adventure on which he was about to embark—a bicycle ride across the United States. His goal was to raise awareness of and funding for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, and for the National Hospice Foundation. Lee is the former president of Eastern Standard Corp., which was a large Baltimore, MD-based window coverings fabricator. His story, which begins on page 24, makes several good points, among them that there is life after working, and that perhaps a person's greatest legacy just might be what he has given back to his community. By all measures Lee's ride was a tremendous success, and reading how members of the window coverings industry came out to support him makes it that much more special. The other story comes to us from Kitty Stein, our Workroom Operations columnist. This month, on page 50, Stein writes mostly as a proud member of the Window Coverings Association of America (WCAA) board of directors. WCAA is unveiling its Certified Workroom Professional program—the workroom equivalent to its Certified Window Treatment Consultant program. The workroom certification program will cover the basics anyone would need to master in order to be recognized as a professional workroom. It is all about taking your work seriously and about showing that to others. Its aim is to raise the level of education, professionalism and confidence of those who become certified and to set them above and apart from those who don't. "From the beginning," Stein writes, "it was our goal to make this a complete and intensive program that would have real meat and be meaningful." The course is based on Ethel Mahon's "The Encyclopedia of Fabrications," and will be the predecessor of a more advanced course to follow. The first certification test is scheduled for October 26 to 28 at the Boston Curtain & Drapery show in Providence, RI.

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