ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America 2017 Final Report

LAS VEGAS — ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America 2017 in Las Vegas is over and has shown itself to be another successful year (images below).

On Tuesday, the show kicked off with a mass of attendees pouring into the Las Vegas Convention Center. ARCSI made its first presentation at ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America 2017 under the ISSA umbrella after its recent merger with the organization.

On Wednesday, speakers enjoyed a keynote presentation and interview with NFL hall-of-famer Troy Aikman, who discussed his time in the NFL and as a business owner, making parallels to modern cleaning businesses. One particularly interesting moment came when Aikman spoke about the car dealership he previously owned. He said it had been a struggling company before he took it over, and when he took over, there were many aspects of the employees that he took issue with, most specifically, how they dressed. Aikman said his aggressive management style initially made him want to simply call the employees out and force them to change their work dress, but he decided to start set an example by wearing a suit and tie there each day, no matter what he had been doing beforehand. Within weeks, Aikman said, employees began modeling their own dress after him. It was a great reminder of the necessity for managers to lead by example.

Many other exciting sessions took place on Wednesday, including one by Cleanfax Executive Editor Jeff Cross, who presented a IICRC-sponsored ISSA-CMI Carpet Maintenance Certification course to a packed house of nearly 150 participants. Attendees took part in a high overview of carpet surfaces and current trends, from elimination of resoiling to interim and restorative maintenance processes.

On Thursday Morning, attendees were treated to a State of the Economy presentation from political minds Brian Beaulieu, Jim Messina, Karl Rove, and moderator Frank Luntz. The hour-long presentation allowed the panelists to discuss the ever-changing landscape of the economy and its impact on the cleaning industries.

Many notable carpet cleaning industry faces made appearances including IICRC, The Experience, XPower Manufacture, B-Air, Karcher, Sunbelt, and others.

Next year’s ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America will be held October 29 through November 1, 2018, in Dallas, Texas.