He’s an inspiration to his students.

 

His peers admire him and say he’s their role model.

 

He’s an role model for many and a volunteer who doesn’t just talk about what he can do for others – instead, he steps up to do it.

 

For those reasons – and many more – Barry Costa has been chosen as the 2003 CM/Cleanfax Person of the Year.

 

In his busy schedule of frequent teaching and industry volunteerism, Barry Costa spoke with CM/Cleanfax about being selected as Person of the Year, his development as a professional, and his perspective on the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC); its past, present, and future.

 

The personal/professional Barry Costa

 

Costa grew up in the industry, helping his father install carpet from the age of 12. He started in the cleaning industry and with water damage restoration work around 1970.

 

While remaining active in carpet care, he taught public school from 1976 until 1986 when he rejoined the industry full-time.

 

He owned Carpet & Cleaning Craftsman, Inc., a restoration, carpet cleaning and installation company, until December of 1999.

 

Since then, he has focused his career on teaching in the carpet industry, or as he has called it, blending his two lives. Make no mistake; here is a man that most say is passionate about what he does for a living.

 

He lives with his wife Carol and son Adam, and is president of Costa Group, Inc., in Peterborough, NH.

 

He is a regular participant in the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society through the Society’s “Team in Training” program, helping to raise funds in honor of his daughter Kimberly Joy, who died of Hodgkin’s disease at the age of 19. (See a tribute to Kimberly in the sidebar)

 

Costa is currently serving as the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) chairman of the IICRC-approved Carpet Repair and Reinstallation Technician (RRT) course, and acting as the vice-chairman of the new S520 Mold Standard and Reference Guide, to be published and distributed by the IICRC later this year.

 

On being selected

 

When informed his peers selected him as Person of the Year (see “The selection committee” in the sidebar), Costa said, "That's what really blows me away. I look at the people on the “Dream Team”... these people are icons in this industry. To even be thought to be up to that caliber is pretty humbling. It's awfully nice. It's...wow."

 

On influences within the industry

 

“I would call all of my colleagues around me influences. My students are influences. In fact, everyone that you meet. My daughter would be telling me right now, ‘Dad, every time you meet someone new you leave a little bit of yourself with them, and you’re affected by each other.’ So lots of people around you always influence you everywhere.

 

“Tom Hill (president of T. Hill & Associates, Vancouver WA) has influenced me in many ways.

“Jeff Bishop (technical advisor for the IICRC and administrator of Clean Care Seminars, Dothan AL) has given a lot of influence to a lot of people in this industry with his passion for expertise and quality.

 

“My dad, who started me in this whole industry; I was very fortunate to be taught carpet installation initially by a person who was a master that didn’t really shortcut things. I had a chance to learn the importance of that later. I mean, he made mistakes as we all do but I had a really good start in that.

 

“Dan Bernazzani, past president of IICRC. You have a man of the highest integrity who had to make some very difficult decisions at times. Some of these decisions weren’t in his best interest, and yet he made them.

 

“Larry Cooper, a past president of the IICRC and a past recipient also of the CM/Cleanfax Person of the Year award. I’m watching him work with a group of individuals writing standards… Here’s a man who can take so many people and pull them together in a collaborative approach. Sometimes people aren’t always going to agree with him, and that, you know, ‘Gosh, people aren’t getting what they want,’ but he’s always focused on the goal at the other end.

 

“Ralph Bloss, (former chairman of Steam Way International, Denver CO) a gentleman who just passed away. What an icon. Talk about an influence of dealing with people, and putting people as one of the most important parts of every business. Really honoring people…that we are in a people business.

 

“This last marathon I ran with the Leukemia/Lymphoma Society “Team in Training” Program; I ran in honor of Kim, as I always do, but I also ran it in honor of Ralph Bloss.

 

“These are people who, I look around and go, ‘Wow, these are pillars,’ and the list could go on and on and on and on. These are just some of the people of influence around me…

 

On his professional turning points

 

“I’d say there were two.

         

“One was right at the beginning of teaching. I had been an elementary school teacher, and I recall my first school teaching adults. I tried to be someone I wasn’t. Doug Bowles (of Horizon Consultants, Rocky Face GA), a really talented instructor, sat in the class, and I asked him to critique it. He was phenomenal with his critique. It was heart wrenching, but it was phenomenal. I needed to be who I am, and not anyone I wanted to try to emulate or anything else.

 

“I forgot some of the things that I learned in school to teach, because I was trained to teach kids and not necessarily adults. But you know what? Adults are kids in older bodies, that’s all there is to it. So I found a passion in how to teach, and it was great.

 

“But probably the most important turning point was my daughter Kim. She wrote these ten life lessons she talked about in her graduation speech that literarily blew me away. She had the wisdom of a 90-year old at the age of 19 when she died. Her fifth life lesson was, ‘Touch as many lives as you can.’

 

“I start each water school by telling everyone, ‘You’re going to have two teachers for the next three days; myself and my daughter Kim.’ So I have all this energy inside while I’m teaching — a lot of passion to try to touch people’s lives.”

 

On the IICRC

 

“It’s a phenomenal organization. I got involved in the IICRC in about 1986. I’ve held a lot of different positions and worked in a variety of capacities. This is a phenomenal organization of professionals who really care about this industry, that have been movers and shakers in the industry.

 

“It’s an organization where, literally, stockholders are the carpet cleaners that are out there. It’s the trade associations that actually run the IICRC. But within any organization you’ve got some really key people that do a tremendous amount of work in the organization.

 

“It’s been growing leaps and bounds. You look back at 1972, when it was formed as the IICUC (International Institute of Carpet & Upholstery Cleaning), and what its mission was, and what it is today, and how it’s grown from one course that taught you carpet cleaning, upholstery cleaning, odor work, carpet repair; all in one day, all in one course, to what it is today where our courses are expanding and expanding and standards-writing are coming out, and thousands of hours of time and money being donated by professionals, by people writing these standards.

 

“Sometimes the recipients who use the standards don’t really get a full grasp of the amount of volunteerism that goes behind the scenes.

 

“For instance, in the mold standard that we’re writing right now, we have a core group of people that have been to meetings here, there, and everywhere that have donated, not only their time, but have paid for their own airfare, their own hotel stays, to write a controversial document out there called a mold standard that will be hacked at, and rightfully so. Needs to be, because we want a good document when everything is done that we can all live by. But volunteering all this time to be in front of a firing squad. And that’s the caliber of people involved. It’s an honor to be with the people in the IICRC. It’s an amazing organization.

 

“Like any organization, it has its faults. What family doesn’t? If you look into your own family, there are things that happen in your family you look and you go, ‘Boy, that was kind of stupid and dumb.’ But all in all, it’s a great family of individuals, of people that are all working really hard toward a common goal.”

 

On the future of the IICRC

 

“I see more standards coming out.

 

“Right now it appears we’re becoming more collegiate-like in nature. I’m very, very in favor of that; I think that’s a great trend.

 

“I see more hands-on training happening with courses with the IICRC.

 

“I continue to see the energy and the synergism happening within the IICRC.

 

“At some point in time I would love to see the constant movement — it’s there; at a snail’s pace, but we’re moving — where the entire industry, all organizations within the industry don’t have to look at each other as competing venues.

 

“This is just an evolution. Even as Larry Cooper would say with the standards: The standards are a living document. So is the IICRC, it’s a living document that keeps evolving.

 

“As long as people are willing to volunteer their time and effort, I see a lot of success. And I still see a lot of people in there still making it happen.”

 

On the impact of the IICRC

 

“There are over 25,000 certified technicians around the world. That’s quite an impact.

 

“I would like to think every time I’m teaching a school I’m touching people’s lives. Not just professionally, but having the chance to meet somebody and touch their life in a person to person way as well.

 

“I think that’s what the IICRC is about, also. We’re into touching people’s lives; whether you’re a cleaner or a store manager, a homeowner, or an insurance adjustor. Everyone’s lives are affected by good professionalism, and I think that’s what we’re providing.”