Roger Milliken

Recipient of the

American Manufacturering Trade Action Coalition Award for

American Manufacturing Policy Visionary Award

April 15, 2008, Washington, D.C.
George W. Shuster, President and CEO of Cranston Print Works Company presents Roger Milliken with the American Manufacturing Coalition (AMTAC) American Manufacturing Policy Visionary Award, Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at the Capitol Hilton, Washington, D.C. Roger Milliken with Congressman Mike Michaud (Maine, 2nd). THE NATIONAL TEXTILE ASSOCIATION has a long association with Roger Milliken and with the company that he has grown to be the largest privately held textile company in the world.

NTA traces its history back to 1854. Over the more than a century-and-a-half the organization has had many changes in membership.

Milliken and Company is one of our oldest--indeed the second oldest continuous member. Deering, Milliken & Co., Inc. joined our predecessor organization, the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, on November 26, 1919. Through the years Milliken and Company has provided direction to NTA in several sectors of the textile industry.

For six of the nine decades Milliken and Company has been affiliated with NTA it was Roger Milliken who steered that company and his personal influence at NTA has been that of a wise statesman of the industry.

In a 1978 history of NTA, association president William Sullivan observed: "Roger Milliken has been supportive and both his warp knit operations in the South and mills in Exeter, New Hampshire and Machias, Maine, are members and their total dues are significant."

In 1989 the Northern Textile Association gave Roger Milliken our Silver Medal. We again honored him in 1999 with a Lifetime Achievement Award. These honors, the many others he has enjoyed through his life, and those conferred in tonight's festivities cannot even begin to address the debt the American textile industry owes Mr. Milliken. His commitment to quality, his advocacy for sound public policy, and his promotion of textile research and education distinguish him as a true textile industry visionary.

On behalf of the Chairman of NTA, Jim Robbins (by the way, a Milliken and Company alumnus), and all the officers, directors, members and staff of NTA, I offer the textile industry's collective THANK YOU ROGER MILLIKEN!

Karl Spilhaus, President, National Textile Association