September 06, 2007
CCA Global Partners

ST.LOUIS, MO (September 06, 2007) – CCA Global Partners announces with great sadness that Alan Greenberg, Co-founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-CEO of CCA Global Partners, passed away August 28, 2007 after a courageous battle with cancer.

A floor covering retailer “by birth,” Alan had a lifetime of experience in the floor covering business. He grew up in the family business—Tile Town/Carpet City of St. Louis. After earning his M.B.A. from St. Louis University in 1968, he joined Tile Town/Carpet City as a minority stockholder. He quickly grew the company into a $20 million enterprise and one of the region’s largest floor covering dealers.

In 1983, Alan ventured out on his own to start Sun Carpet. The company’s driving force was an unprecedented 30-day customer satisfaction warranty. His focus on customer satisfaction grew Sun Carpet into a four-store chain that was one of St. Louis’ premier floor covering retailers and set a new standard for customer service that raised the bar for the entire industry.

Alan knew that he could apply on a much larger scale the same basic principles that made Sun Carpet a success. He had a vision of floor covering retailers throughout the country leveraging their buying power with mills and manufacturers and purchasing professionally produced national advertising. He called this concept “the Power of One.”

In 1984, Greenberg joined with a kindred spirit, Howard Brodsky, to co-chair the industry’s first “Billion Dollar Carpet Sale”, uniting 11,000 independent floor covering retailers. That pioneering effort sparked the idea for Carpet One, now part of CCA Global Partners, which Alan and Howard co-founded. Having developed and nurtured 18 companies with over 3,600 stores in the flooring, mortgage banking, lighting, and bicycling industries, Alan Greenberg and Howard Brodsky’s CCA Global Partners demonstrates the true potential for cooperative business. The companies in CCA Global Partners collectively employ thousands of people worldwide and achieved $10.2 billion in aggregate annual sales in 2006.

“For over 24 years, I was fortunate to have a best friend to share experiences with. Not only did we work closely together, but he was my dearest friend,” says Howard Brodsky. “It is rare in life for a person to live his dream, and Alan and I were able to live our dream together. Alan was a person of great integrity and warmth and was a true visionary. His love and commitment to CCA Global Partners and its members was beyond imagination. He believed strongly in our mission and cherished all of the relationships he formed. This is a great personal loss to me and to the industry. Alan and I have talked on the phone every day for the past 24 years. I will miss him very much. This is a tremendous loss in my life.”

Respected and quoted around the world, Alan Greenberg was considered one of the premier visionaries in the home furnishings industry. Greenberg truly changed the industry and his innovations and vision were fundamental in the success of the now $35 billion floor covering industry. His accomplishments and contributions to the flooring industry have not gone unnoticed by his flooring industry colleagues. As an active leader in industry associations, Greenberg served as president and later chairmen of the board of the Retail Floorcovering Institute, a multi-billion dollar national trade association. In 1999, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young for the St. Louis region. In 2002, Greenberg was inducted into the World Floor Covering Association Hall of Fame. For the past four years Greenberg has been named to HFN’s “Power 100”, a list of the top executives who influence the home furnishings industry, including the former Federal Reserve Board Chair, Alan Greenspan. Greenberg has been the Vice Chairman of the Floor Covering Industry Foundation, and earlier this year was awarded the FCIF Lifetime Achievement Award. He had been actively involved in fundraising, and his efforts helped to establish the CCA Global Partners/FCIF Annual Charity Golf Tournament. Since the first tournament in September 2003, the event has raised more than $500,000 for the FCIF.

Alan Greenberg cared very much for his colleagues in the flooring industry and for his friends and family in his community. He was a great friend. We will remember Alan as a man of conviction and warmth. His compassion and generosity were so prominent that a stranger could look at Alan and know he had a good heart. Alan’s many, many friends know, though, that it was difficult to remain a stranger around Alan. He welcomed people into his life with graciousness and treated everyone he encountered with respect.

The impact Alan Greenberg left on the flooring industry and on his community will be felt for generations. CCA Global Partners and our friends and families will miss Alan and will feel his absence deeply. And in the wake of this great loss, we will support each other the way Alan would have wanted and come together as a group of friends who have learned from a great man what it means to be compassionate and selfless. This is a great loss for CCA Global Partners. Alan had love and respect for all of us. Our thoughts and sympathy are extended to the entire Greenberg family. He leaves his loving wife Sharon, daughter Darcy Glidewell and son-in-law Dan Glidewell and their daughter Natalie, and son Tod Greenberg and daughter-in-law Stefanie and their daughters Emma and Abbie.

Donations should be made to the Floor Covering Industry Foundation with a note on the “memo” portion of the check indicating: “Alan Greenberg Memorial Fund”.

FLOOR COVERING INDUSTRY FOUNDATION
2211 E. Howell Avenue
Anaheim, CA. 92806 USA

About CCA Global Partners
With $10.2 billion in aggregate gross sales, CCA Global Partners is a formidable leader in the retail industry. Today, nearly 3,600 retail stores in the United States and abroad benefit from CCA Global’s business leadership through its 15 different affiliate companies. CCA Global’s unique business model promotes entrepreneurship by enabling thousands of independent retailers to compete successfully with large national corporations. CCA Global business owners are currently engaged in the flooring, lighting, mortgage banking and biking industries. Visit www.ccaglobal.com for more information.