Association is 'making textiles great again'

Posted November 17, 2016

By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)

CLEMSON, S.C. – Nearly 90 industry representatives were on hand this week for the Southern Textile Association’s (STA’s) Southern Division Fall Meeting at the Madren Conference Center here.

Division Chairman Matt Shannon of Greenwood Mills introduced the program in perhaps the best post-election fashion possible: “Welcome to the 2016 Fall Meeting of the Southern Division of the Southern Textile Association, where we are making textiles great again,” he deadpanned.

After encouraging attendees to continue to push for new members – the association recently surpassed the 500-member mark – STA Chairman Todd Wemyss of Glen Raven Custom Fabrics asked members to take a look at the newly designed STA website.

Auggie Tantillo, president and CEO of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), opened the program by covering post-election trade matters as well as the council’s #WeMakeAmazing rebranding campaign. He pointed out that most of the pollsters and pundits were wrong in their presidential predictions, and acknowledged that “we’re now in some truly uncharted waters.”

“Those uncharted waters, however, are not necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “As one who has worked on manufacturing issues for the better part of 30 years in Washington, I can honestly say there is a level of enthusiasm that has evolved over the last week that generally wasn’t there. The manufacturing sector in the United States, even though it is the engine to our wealth creation, has been overlooked and undervalued for at least the 30 years I’ve been here. So let’s hope that President-Elect Trump will carry through on his commitments, promises and clearly stated intentions to place a proper value on the U.S. manufacturing base, including those of us who work in the textile industry.”

Tantillo reminded attendees of the work the NCTO did to ensure certain provisions were included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). He went on to say that there is no clear path forward for TPP with the election of President Trump. He predicted that it would not be approved in the current lame duck session of Congress and that the new president would not seek its enactment after he takes office.

He also noted that the NCTO fought back three efforts to weaken the Berry Amendment, adding that “hopefully, we will have an ally in the administration who will say ‘we do not just want to support the Berry Amendment, we want to strengthen it.’ ”

Tantillo added that, under Trump, he expects a sea change to occur in a number of areas, including immigration, trade and manufacturing.

He also updated the audience on the #WeMakeAmazing campaign aimed at improving the perception of the textile industry, particularly among the media, policy influencers and business leaders.

“We want to help people understand that what’s in your closet today isn’t what was in there 30 years ago,” he said. “There has been a tremendous amount of work to make it more durable, to make it easier to wick fluids, to keep you warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. We want people to understand that we’re the industry that’s doing that – not the brands. We also want people to understand that our products have end-use applications that people normally wouldn’t recognize, things that improve lives and save lives.”

Also presenting were:

• Carl Tolbert, director of Engineering, B&D Technologies, who discussed his company’s technologies;
   

• Chuck Butts, technical engineer/Sales, Murata Machinery USA, Inc., who went over his firm’s latest machinery technologies;
   

• Oliver Meier, sales representative, Staubli Corporation, who delved into weaving technologies;
   

• Dr. Scott Baier, associate professor, Clemson University, who provided an economic update; and
   

• Cheryl Stanton, director, S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce, talked about ways the state is creating a “talent pipeline.'