ISSA/INTERCLEAN® USA 2006, held in Chicago from October 4-7, kicked off with its strongest start ever with nearly 10,000 unique visitors on the trade show’s first day.

The event attracted 16,637 participants and featured 683 exhibitors, 5,412 distributor personnel and 2,824 building service contractors and in-house service providers.

Despite these numbers and the strong start, there was a drop-off of attendees heading into the weekend due to the show’s atypical Wednesday-through-Saturday schedule.

“While we achieved our highest-ever first-day attendance and the seminars were bursting at the seams the previous day, more attendees left earlier than usual due to the event’s unusual Saturday closing,” says John Garfinkel, ISSA executive director. “This caused Friday afternoon and Saturday to be slower than normal for the final days of the convention, and tempered what was shaping up to be an otherwise excellent event.”

High points
Arguably the convention’s biggest highlight came from keynote speaker, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who broke room capacity records at his Thursday presentation.

Before the show floor opened, BSCs, ISPs and distributors received business tips from educational sessions and seminars sponsored by Contracting Profits magazine. Once the show began, the information kept flowing at the new ISSA Education Theatre on the show floor.

The All-Industry Networking Lunch drew 500 participants from all along the supply chain to share ideas. Another great networking opportunity, The Fifth Annual ISSA Women’s Forum drew more than 100 attendees.

Back again this year was the ISSA Happy Hour that featured a concert by the Blues Brothers. Also returning was the ISSA Innovation Revue with Chicago gangster-themed performances. Awards were given out in five categories for the most innovative products. More than three times as many voters as last year picked products from The Dial Corp., Georgia-Pacific N.A., Windsor Industries, Rubbermaid Commercial Products Inc., and Easy Dump Products Inc., as winners.

ISSA also awarded companies for their achievements in customer service. Winners included Cyclone Environmental Technologies LLC, Royce Rolls Ringer Co., Rubbermaid Commercial Products Inc., Sanitor Manufacturing Co., Spartan Chemical Co., Inc., and Tennant Co.

Next year ISSA/INTERCLEAN USA changes its name to ISSA/INTERCLEAN North America to reflect the show’s regional scope.

It will be held in Orlando from Oct. 23-26, 2007.


Click on images to enlarge view
(L-R) Richard Johnson, Mark Pighills and Rory Beaudette of ACS Products. The CleanHound mascot for the industry’s first vertical search engine poses with Dan Merkel of Advantage Marketing Associates.
Dave Frank, president of the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences, explains the financial impact of green cleaning. (L-R) Jose Perez, Craig Moormeier, Eric Downing and Mike Sharlow of Kent show off the company’s new ride-on scrubber.
John Harbal, president and CEO of Impact (left), and J. Paul Orednick, CPMR senior partner of JPO/DOW Inc., at Impact’s hospitality. Buckeye’s booth provided a relaxing atmosphere for trade show attendees.
Ted Moon of Geerpres (left) poses with Trey Vick, Mark Whitt, Timm Sasser, Sean Smith, Michael Gluhanich at Geerpres’s hospitality at the Best Western River North. Mike Perazzo, sales director, demos one of Kaivac’s new machines introduced at this year’s show.
At the Brulin booth, Chris Jones (left), director of international operations, and John Ward, director of sales, greet attendees. JohnsonDiversey employees assemble for a group picture: (front L-R) Rosemary Christenson, Roxanne Sobanski, Jennifer Ostermann. (Back L-R) Darin Gleason, Chris Warner, Cameron Adams, Thomas Seitz and John Ravaris.
Clarke employees dressed in Blues Brothers’ garb ham it up for the cameras. Employees at Advance ride out the trade show in style.
500 building service contractors, in-house cleaning professionals and distributors gather for the “All-Industry Networking Lunch.” Tim Ames, general manager, and Susan Kennedy, director of marketing for Sloan JANSAN, greet guests arriving at the company’s hospitality, held at the Hilton Chicago.
Andrea Maerz and Andi Maerz of Cleanfix pose with the company’s line of floor machines.
 (L-R) Ed Whartnaby, vice president of sales, Technical Concepts, meets with Amy Roper, Ted Barklage, Eric Hickman and Jon Questal of New Systems of St. Louis.
Alexander Morgan and Michael Kupneski proudly display P&G’s new environmentally-friendly floor finish stripper.
 Penny Demetriades, ETC of Henderson’s executive vice president, graciously welcomes more than 200 guests to the hospitality she organized at Tommy Gun’s Garage.
A trade show attendee tries out the Unger ErgoToiletBowlBrush.
 Steve Spencer, facility specialist for State Farm Insurance, presents a seminar on maintaining quality while reducing costs.
Tennant Co.’s booth included an estimated 2,069 individual plants. After the show, Tennant donated all plants to the Lurie Garden, part of Chicago’s Millennium Park. Robert Wendover, director at The Center for Generational Studies, educates attendees on succession planning.
(L-R) Byron Masson, Dan Fielding, Mike Corder, Ron Smith and Mark Appelbaum of Royal Appliance display some of the company’s products.
 Billy Mitchell, director of marketing, demos one of the new vacuums ProTeam featured at this year’s show.
Rubbermaid Commercial Products invited Chicago’s King College Prep High School band to entertain the crowd. The Pacific booth featured a variety of floor care machines.
A sales representative from Pioneer Eclipse explains the features of the company’s floor machines. Jim Peduto, co-founder of the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences, walks attendees through proper workloading procedures.
David Moffatt, vice president of sales, and Paula Stewart, strategic account manager, take some time to show off SCA Tissue’s booth. A Tornado representative informs an attendee about floor machines.
Rudy Giuliani defines the “Six Principles of Leadership” in his keynote address. Brent Crawford, president of Core Products, and James “Fry” Watson, production manager, say this year’s show was a hit.




POSTED ON: 11/1/2006