ST. LOUIS — In one of the toughest business climates the industry has faced, the credit offices of furniture suppliers are feeling pressure from all sides.

From the top, there’s pressure from executives and sales teams to ease credit restrictions or open new retail accounts to drive sales. At the other end, there is the weakening retailer, struggling to pay its bills on time.

Willa Gragg, left, Fairfield Chair, retired; Jim Bumgarner, Furniture Manufacturers Credit Assn.; Rachel Laws, Fairfield Chair; Fred Laws; and Norma Yount, Ferguson Copeland.

And somewhere in between, many credit managers have watched their staffs shrink as part of cost control moves.

So it’s not surprising that much of the Furniture Manufacturers Credit Assn. annual meeting here at the Millennium Hotel was spent looking for ways to deal with and prepare for this pressure. During the three-day event, FMCA members brushed up on bankruptcy law, shared ideas on how to do more with fewer people, and learned how to protect themselves and their businesses from both financial and physical harm.

Sharon Gross, left, Richard Gross, Norwalk; Dan Warren, BB&T Commercial Finance; Tony Potapenko, Standard Furniture; and Nancy Everett.

Among the questions and answers:

+ When a supplier receives payment by regular check, when does the transfer actually occur? When the check clears the debtor’s bank account. (If you think a retailer is on the verge of bankruptcy, don’t run to your bank to cash it, Thompson said: “Take it down to their bank.”)

+ When might a creditor might have a claim against the principal of a debtor corporation, event though the debt

Van Everett, left, FMCA; Dave Carpenter, La-Z-Boy Greensboro; Adrienne Murphy, Sandberg Furniture, and Ron Clark, Bassett.

+ How long does a trustee have to bring a preference suit — or a claim requesting the return of money paid out before a bankruptcy is filed — against an insider under the new bankruptcy code? One year, she said.

Thompson said many involuntary bankruptcies pursued by creditors and their attorneys come after these kinds of payments are made to insiders, but

Beverly Curtis, left, Vanguard, prepares to disarm Ron Clark of Bassett during a training session on how to deal with violence in the workplace.

“When a company gets into trouble we often find that it has ‘preferred’ its insiders” by making insider transfers, she said.

In a best practices idea sharing session, FMCA members’ questions often involved how to deal with reductions in staffing, greater workloads and slow-paying retailers.

Dave Carpenter, director credit for La-Z-Boy Financial Services-Greensboro, said he holds monthly meetings with his staff and asks each employee for an idea to save money, eliminate waste and improve efficiency.

“If it’s valid, we implement it during the month, follow up the following month and keep the list going,” Carpenter said, adding later that the meetings have led to several improvements in La-Z-Boy’s computer program that have helped make the workload lighter.

Ron Clark, left, Bassett; Ken Stuckwish; Mona Stuckwish, Berkline BenchCraft; Monica Childers and Beverly Curtis, Vanguard.

Brenda Jones, left, Riverside; Kay Vickers; Angie Mills, Bernhardt; Glenn Hendren, Stanley; and Ron Teglas, Lexington Home Brands.

Brian Spencer, left, Pulaski; Rachel Laws, Fairfield Chair; Fred Laws; Dom Marchiando, HDM Furniture; Jay Shearin; and Pat Shearin, Sherrill.

FMCA recognizes three honorees

ST. LOUIS — Beverly Curtis, credit manager for Vanguard, and Ron Teglas, director of credit for Lexington Home Brands, received the Furniture Manufacturers Creditors Assn.’s top honors during its annual meeting

Ron Teglas, Lexington Home Brands, honors Beverly Curtis, Vanguard, this year’s FMCA Hall of Fame honoree.

Curtis became the 12th person named to the FMCA Hall of Fame, honored for her long support of the organization. Teglas received the R.K. Rudicil II Award, chosen by outgoing President Ron Clark, for excellence in credit.

Teglas presented Curtis with her award.

“Tonight’s inductee has served on FMCA’s board for over 12 years now and has done the most time-consuming job — that of secretary — an astoundingly unselfish five times,” said Teglas before presenting the honor.

Curtis also served as FMCA president in 2001-02 and vice president in 2000-01. She received the Credit Manager of the Year award in 1993-94 and the Rudicil honor in 1997-98.

“If I had to use one word to describe her, it would be faithful,” her daughter Monica Childers, also of Vanguard, wrote to Teglas. “As a wife, as a mom and now as a grandmother, she has always been there.”
 
In accepting the award, Curtis recalled that a little over 25 years ago, Vanguard CEO John Bray came to her and asked if she minded calling on customers for money. That’s what led to her longtime job there

“I really didn’t know what I was getting into,” she said. “It wasn’t until after a few calls and then a few more calls and then a few more calls, all to the same customer, that I realized this job was not going to be easy.

“The only thing that made it easier was having a little help from a few of my friends, and most of them are in this room tonight,” Curtis said.

Clark, the outgoing FMCA president, praised Teglas for his work on the group’s claims procedures committee.

Ron Teglas, left, Lexington Home Brands, is presented FMCA’s R.K. Rudicil II Award for excellence in credit by FMCA outgoing president Ron Clark of Bassett.

Teglas, who also stepped in as FMCA treasurer after former treasurer Paul Purcell left Pulaski, has been a member of the group since 1994.

Every year the FMCA subgroup hosting the annual meeting honors someone they feel has made a big contribution to the FMCA and the industry by choosing his or her name to lead that year’s Heritage Awards, which honor companies for outstanding FMCA support.

This year was particularly special because the honoree, Willa Gragg, retired credit manager and secretary of Fairfield Chair, was on hand to except it.

Bumgarner gave members a taste of Gragg’s sense of humor, as well as details on her history with both Fairfield, from 1949 to 1990, and the FMCA, where she served as president in 1972-73, vice president the years before, and as secretary five times from 1969 to 1989, among other things.

Willa Gragg, left, retired credit manager and secretary of Fairfield Chair, is honored by Jim Bumgarner, Furniture Manufacturers Credit Assn. The organization linked Gragg’s name to its 2007 Heritage Award, which recognizes a company’s outstanding support of FMCA.

He read comments form friends and former colleagues, including Rachel Laws, Fairfield’s current credit manager, who called Gragg one of the “pioneer women” in the credit industry, which had been male-dominated.

Alvin Daughtridge, vice president of Fairfield, said Gragg was an outstanding credit manager, “always fair, but tough.”

“She had the trust of management, dealers and sales reps,” he said. “Sometimes new sale reps vacillated from awe to fear, but they always ended up with respect and trust in her judgment.”

This year’s Heritage winners are Bassett Furniture, BB&T Commercial Finance, Berkline/BenchCraft, Bernhardt, Century, Fairfield Chair, Ferguson Copeland, Hooker, Huntington Furniture, Lane Acceptance Group, La-Z-Boy Greensboro, Lexington Home Brands, Pulaski, Stanley and Thomasville Furniture Inds.

Outstanding credit manager of the year awards went to Glenn Hendren, Stanley, for the Virginia Group; Allison Watts, Century, who won the Steve Osborne Credit Manager of the Year honor from the Western North Carolina Group; and Becky Jessup, Universal Furniture, for the Central North Carolina Group.

The new slate of FMCA officers are Angie Mills, Bernhardt, president; Dave Carpenter, La-Z-Boy Greensboro, vice president; Teglas, treasurer; and Glenn Hendren, secretary.

New to the board are Chris Canipe, Broyhill; Norma Yount, Ferguson Copeland; and Barbara Batts, Barcalounger.

Next year’s meeting has been scheduled for Sept. 17-19 at the Hyatt Regency Savannah in Savannah, Ga.