Though 2019 got started last month, the impact of some pro- grams and events aren’t really being felt until now. Hopefully by the time you receive this magazine, you will be either at Surfaces/TISE West or have recently returned, armed with new industry contacts, and inspired by new product ideas and information gleaned from conference sessions to power you through ’til Coverings! NTCA has a new configuration of training opportunities for 2019. Over 100 free NTCA Workshops will still be coming to a location near you for three evening hours of camaraderie, good eats, indus- try information on standards and avoiding failures while offering hands-on demonstrations of new materials and methods. But in 2019, NTCA will visit select cities for a week-long “NTCA Training Experience” that combines a tra- ditional NTCA Workshop open and free to all interested indus- try professionals, a free regional training event available to NTCA members and their employees, and a free open round table dis- cussion for NTCA members to allow sharing of ideas, challenges, business tips, problem solving tips and more. For details, see Bart Bettiga’s story in our Training & Education section. Short of bring- ing education to your living room (which actually is what the online NTCA University enables us to do!), NTCA is pushing even harder to be sure there is accessible, free training to more areas of the country than ever before. Take advantage of it! And if you have an opinion, or would like to read those of others, visit our new NTCA Forum, a blog that we just rolled out in January. We’ll post articles and informa- tion and invite you to share your thoughts. Find it here: https://info. tile-assn.com/ntca-forum. February hosts National Tile Day on the 23rd. In honor of that, Avia Haynes has penned a story about how the Why Tile initiative is such an important one and how you can tie into it in your business. Be sure to visit TileLetter on Facebook on February 23, to witness the beauty and installation excellence EDITOR’S LETTER Lesley A. Goddin “Bourne concentrated on rest and mobility. From somewhere in his forgotten past he understood that recovery depended upon both and he applied rigid discipline to both.” – The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum 14 TileLetter | February 2019