Carpet Industry Veteran Harold North Sr. Dies

Chattanooga, TN, June 22, 2009--Harold I. North, Sr., a highly respected icon in the carpet industry for more than 50 years, died June 15. He was 82.

North was instrumental in the development of the international carpet market and remained active on a global scale until his retirement in 2008 as vice president with Card-Monroe Corp.

He started his business career as a menswear salesman, but in 1957 was hired by Lewis Card to sell tufting machines for Cobble Brothers, a pioneer company in the industry. North recalled his first days, dedicating “many long hours reading, trying to understand what a tufting machine was, and also to understand the industry.”

His career path subsequently took him to Singer-Cobble, when the Singer Company acquired Cobble Brothers in 1960; he followed Lewis and Roy Card to Tuftco in the late sixties, and in 1982 he joined Card-Monroe as a sales executive.

A lifelong resident of Chattanooga, Tenn. area, he attended the University of Tennessee, University of Chattanooga, and the Advanced Management Program of Harvard University. He was a veteran of World War II, serving in the U.S. Army.