Iowa Furniture Maker Wins GSA Environmental Award

GS #10057

December 2, 2003

Contact: Robert Shaw (215) 446-4910
robert.shaw@gsa.gov

Iowa Furniture Maker Wins GSA Environmental Award

WASHINGTON -- U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator, Stephen A. Perry and GSA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Barbara L. Shelton today presented GSA’s 2003 Evergreen Award for environmental leadership to HON INDUSTRIES, an Iowa office furniture manufacturer.

Thirteen years ago, in 1990, HON INDUSTRIES started encouraging employees to identify and eliminate waste in every task, following HON’s new Rapid and Continuous Improvement process. Eleven years ago, in 1992, HON increased its environmental efforts with its Environmental Management System, which encourages employees to consider environmental impacts throughout the manufacturing process.

Stanley Askren, President of HON INDUSTRIES of Muscatine, accepted the award at a ceremony in Arlington, Va., along with David Burdakin, HON Co. president, and Eric Jungbluth, president of subsidiary Allsteel.

The Evergreen Award recognizes efforts by GSA’s corporate partners to reduce waste through recycling and identifying environmentally preferable products. To help agencies buy green, GSA publishes the Environmental Products and Services Guide, which lists more than 3,000 environmentally oriented products and services available from GSA’s Federal Supply Service.

GSA is a centralized federal procurement and property management agency created by Congress to improve government efficiency and help federal agencies better serve the public. It acquires, on behalf of federal agencies, office space, equipment, telecommunications, information technology, supplies and services. GSA comprises 14,000 associates who provide services and solutions for the office operations of more than one million federal workers in more than 8,000 government-owned and leased buildings in 2,000 U.S. communities.