Posted April 20, 2016

 

Last week was one of the best I can remember for the U.S. textile industry.

 

It kicked off with the Smart Fabrics Summit, co-hosted by the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) and the U.S. Department of Commerce, and stretched three more days through the National Council of Textile Organization’s (NCTO’s) 13th Annual Meeting.

 

All told, the week packed a powerful punch of positivity.

 

And that’s saying a lot.

 

Especially since I spent it in Washington, D.C. – a bubbling caldron of catastrophe that has often erupted to bring near-death experiences to our sector.

 

But all I can say is “wow.”

 

I’m about as distrustful of the federal government as anyone, especially when it comes to the U.S. textiles industry, often a pawn in our trade negotiators’ chess matches. But I must say, I came away with a sense of optimism for what the future holds for this ubiquitous and all-important manufacturing segment.

 

Riding the wave of the industry’s resurgence and on the heels of the announced Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute (RFT-MII), the industry was in a good place last week. The industry, I felt, had a sense of “being,” for the first time in many years.

 

The Smart Fabrics Summit featured a number of government officials from such areas as the departments of Commerce, Defense and Homeland Security as well as the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Federal Communications Commission. To think that so many government agencies would be as interested in textiles is unfathomable – or at least it was just few years back. But representatives of each of these entities seemed genuinely interested in advancing the industry, which, for a few moments, made me wonder if I had crawled down a wormhole.

 

Then came the NCTO Annual Meeting, which for three days ac-cent-tchu-ated the positives like nothing I’ve seen since the industry’s good ol’ days. And the council had plenty of positives to emphasize. Outgoing Chairman Jeff Price of Milliken & Co. presented an overview of the industry that told the surprising (to many) story of the industry’s resurgence, and a P.R. firm commissioned by the NCTO inspired with the unveiling of a rebranding campaign that painted an accurate portrait of a modern industry.

 

My travels have prevented me from catching my breath after such an exhilarating week, but I’m doing my best to take a moment to appreciate and recognize the significance of what transpired for our industry last week in our Nation’s Capital.

 

Until I can comprehend the significance of what I witnessed, for now, I’ll wrap it up with another Capital – P, for Positivity.