Englander resigns from International Sleep Products Assn.
Questions effectiveness of existing ISPA leadership
David Perry -- Furniture Today, July 27, 2009
OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. — Top 15 bedding producer Englander has resigned from the International Sleep Products Assn. And Englander President Kevin Toman has resigned from his post as an ISPA trustee.
Toman said he feels it is inappropriate for Rick Anderson, president of Tempur-Pedic North America, to retain his post as ISPA's current chairman when Tempur-Pedic has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against more than a dozen bedding producers and suppliers.
"I feel the existing leadership will be ineffective and is compromised based on the lawsuit," Toman said.
Anderson says his ISPA role and the lawsuit are separate issues.
Meanwhile, another ISPA member, Therapedic, says it is evaluating its ISPA membership. "We are evaluating everything these days," said Gerry Borreggine, CEO of Therapedic. "And that includes our ISPA membership."
He said ISPA did not do a good job in dealing with Toman's concerns. "What should have been a family spat erupted into a civil war," Borreggine said,"and the casualty was another lost member. It's a sad outcome for an association whose heritage has been sewn on the collegial relations among its membership. We all should look in the mirror to address what went wrong here. The executive committee of ISPA (of which I am a member) and our executive staff performed below expectations on this one. We should never have placed the association in an ‘either/or' position. Now it's critical that we come together as an industry and begin to rebuild the ISPA family."
No. 12 Englander's departure brings to five the number of Top 15 companies who have exited ISPA in recent years. No. 1 Sealy and No. 3 Serta are the biggest departures. Spring Air, No. 6 on the list of the Top 15 U.S. Bedding Producers at the end of last year, also left ISPA. No. 7 International Bedding left at the end of 2007 when its affiliation with Therapedic ended.
Toman said he asked for a vote by ISPA's board on the issue of Anderson retaining his ISPA post. That vote turned out in Anderson's favor, Toman was told by ISPA officials.
But Toman said he feels strongly that Anderson cannot successfully lead the trade association in view of the Tempur-Pedic lawsuit, which targets the industry's three largest producers - Sealy, Simmons and Serta - as well as several others, including Englander and one of its licensees, World Sleep Products. Toman said he has never seen a lawsuit of that magnitude filed in the bedding industry.
He also said the lawsuit makes it more difficult for ISPA to attract Sealy and Serta, since both of them have been named in the Tempur-Pedic lawsuit and Anderson remains ISPA's chairman. "The current chairman will be ineffective in trying to attract Sealy and Serta back to ISPA," Toman said.
Anderson says Sealy and Serta need to weigh the business value of their participation in ISPA. The ISPA board would welcome them back, he said.
Toman also said he was bothered that ISPA was "silent" during the anti-dumping investigation of foreign innerspring makers instigated by Leggett & Platt. That investigation determined that a number of bedding producers in China, South Africa and Vietnam were dumping innersprings in the U.S. market. "ISPA doesn't want controversy," Toman said.
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ISPA board hopes Englander will rejoin
Jul 28, 2009 -
Englander rejoining ISPA
Aug 17, 2009 -
Carpenter Co. resigns from ISPA
Aug 5, 2009
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