Reflections on HD Vegas
HD Vegas has come and gone, but it has left its mark on Eisen & Associates. It is always fast and furious, but also such an exciting time to connect with our vendors, our clients, and to collaborate with our own rep agency team to take our business up a notch. Our manufactures showed up with some spectacular highlights for 2026!!
The Leftbank Art Booth told the story of the Anthem House Hotel, previously a music recording studio in Nashville, TN and highlighted LEFTBANK HOSPITALITY TEAM capabilities on art curations with the thoughtfully collected art for this re purposed space. Leftbank diversified Art collections where incorporated including wood dimensional art, mirrors, and LED enhanced images on a backdrop of New Sculptural dimensional wall covering including Dimense!
EMU AMERICAS featured the Cannole seating collection across the length of their booth to show the modular capabilities as eternal bench seating! We could have fit our team, the EMU team, and a few customers on it at almost eighteen feet! EMU continues to introduce new collections like the
Stopspot, EMU’s sister company, had numerous furniture pieces from their Ezpeleta line, out of Spain. The furniture is polypropylene and fiberglass and comes in fun new colors. Stopspot is stocking many of their offerings for quick shipment too!
Tuuci and Pavilion packed a punch with a beautiful monochromatic booth w/ Black and White. Tuuci takes shade to a new level that can be a focal point for any exterior installation providing coverage and marketing! Collections included Tuxedo Bolero, Max Solonox cabanas, Lulu Day lounge, Valorie with new silkscreen options The fun does not stop there – check out new Furniture Collections: Canyon crew chairs & dining tables & benches.
MTS had their best chairs in beautiful, updated upholstery options. They are offering a new Textures textile in partnership with Momentum, and they showcased that on their Arc Lounge Chair. It was great to show our customers that MTS is so much more than just banquette seating (although they do that better than anyone)
Overall, it was a highly productive week, we enjoyed time with a number of our favorite clients from CO & UTAH, and we snuck in SOM FUN!
Culinary Masters at Stir Cooking School
Oh, what fun! BSF (Brand Standard Furnishings) was in town last week to meet up with some of our clients, and they are ALWAYS having a good time. Ken Konneck rolled into Denver from Cali and brought on the Fact and made it FUN!
Of course, there was business first in the form of an incredible BSF Educational Series Presentation Built by BSF: Materials, Methods and Craft, Link here https://cloudfiles.box.com/s/x41sn5q5zeszv5k2sm16jlr9coyoyee9
This Educational Series covers everything you need to know about specifying and construing Hospitality case goods and seating from wood species to veneer cuts and layups to hinge application to the prefect seat construction “Soft but Supportive.“ It feels so good to be surrounded by fellow manufacturing geeks who can talk the talk.
But BSF does more than that – they walk the walk and if you’ve never experienced working with them, you are missing out. They are one of the finest examples of perfection that we have seen. We do not know how they do it (magic spells?) but every single employee, from the owner to the skilled labor on the ground in their factories, does their best job every single day. (We know this because we have toured their factories, FYI) It is hard to imagine finding that many people who are truly invested in everything they do. Please contact us to find out about working with BSF. https://brandstandardfurnishings.com/
Now on to the fun part. Eisen & BSF co-hosted Creative culinary collaboration with BSF and had some of our clients (and honestly, friends) come in to stand next to us with very sharp knives. Talk about trust. We learned how to make a plethora of foods under the tutorship of Stir Cooking School. https://www.stirtolearn.com/
They gave us the perfect ingredients to cook up grandiose ideas and to make a fabulous meal we were all able to sit down and share with each other in the end. We sipped wine while chopping, dicing, and smashing garlic. We trusted each other with sharp objects and electronics with fast blades. We allowed each other to add more spice, or less, and hoped we were getting it all right for the group. We learned a bit more about each other in the process, and the result was that in working together, we made something memorable.
When we walk away from days like this, it is easy to remember why we are here in the first place.
Patio Season at EMU Americas
This time of year, is so refreshing. The long, dark nights of winter have passed and everywhere you look there is something new and exhilarating. Color is bursting from the earth in the form of spring bulbs, trees are filling in with beautiful blossoms, and the evenings are getting longer and warmer. Another sure sign of the pending warmer weather is that patios everywhere are getting prepped to re-open. Restaurants and bars are preparing for summer season; hotels are sprucing up their pool areas.
EMU Americas is at the ready to help ensure that outdoor areas everywhere are in tip-top shape, with hundreds of pieces that can be Quick-Shipped within days from their warehouse in Lebanon, PA. They have everything you need to complete an outdoor installation, and they have introduced new collections in very Spring-worthy colors. A new dusty rose (Antique Pink), a sunny yellow shade (Vanilla Yellow), and a fun green, aptly named Spring Green. These colors remind us of the fresh days of Spring that are about to morph into the long days of Summer.
There is nothing better than a well-furnished patio and settling into a comfortable chair to spend an evening dining under the stars with friends and family. EMU understands that no matter how comfortable a seat is, it also needs to be sturdy and well made. Their furniture is manufactured in the heart of Italy, between Florence and Rome. “EMU craftsmen partake in building upon decades of traditional metal work and creativity, constructing some of the world's finest furniture. EMU’s state-of-the-art facility equals in size to seven football fields and plays home to dedicated crafters who combine tradition, technology, and contemporary design, producing practical and comfortable seating solutions.” Their pieces are as practical as they are comfortable, allowing for stacking and folding.
If you are in the Denver Metro, schedule an appointment to stop by the Eisen showroom to see many of the EMU pieces, or to see a more complete collection, call us to schedule a time to meet at EMU’s Wheat Ridge showroom! They always warmly welcome our clients, and you will be surprised at the enormous collection on view. We are looking forward to spending time with you this Spring and are always ready to help you with your patio selections.
MTS Chair School
Sometimes you get to see the extraordinary character of people through the work lens. This past week we were working extensively with one of our clients and MTS Seating, to get a delivery on time for an install. While our vendors work hard to keep schedules, there are times when things go awry and they are beyond the control of the manufacturer. Those are the times when we need to step in and become creative in our approach, bringing the manufacturer into the problem solving, and determining what and who are our best resources to get a job done. We saw the customer service group step up in a remarkable way and we did get the job done. It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t clean, but at the end of the day, everyone pulled together to make it happen.
MTS is such a great partner to have in this business and we are proud to call them ours. We were able to take a trip last month to go to “Chair School” at the MTS facility, where we learned a great deal about the manufacturing, testing, and distribution of the MTS products. We learned that each chair is handled multiple times by dedicated non-union professionals. This is a highly skilled workforce which supports production across three facilities in Michigan. More importantly, we were able to connect with the people that we email every single day as well as the behind-the-scenes people that are making our job possible. Although there is the occasional phone call, we mostly know the MTS people through names on an email account. It is such a great thing to be able to put the name with a face and to hear their voices and spend a bit of time outside of the daily grind. We were able to have dinner with the team and get a bit of down time with them as well.
Every person at MTS has longevity with the company and they feel like a very cohesive group. That is why, when things do go awry, we are able to call them and work through a plan and know that they are doing everything they can to help us, and in turn our clients, succeed. There is no better feeling than knowing you can count on your partners.
Trio Trip to SoCal
We had the pleasure of taking some of our clients at Trio Design to visit Leftbank Art in Los Angeles last week. To be able to bring together our customers with our vendors is such a gift because without all of these relationships we would not be able to thrive. It is easy to get lost in the process, sitting at a desk and sending emails or making phone calls with only the occasional interaction at a trade show or a local event. We are incredibly lucky to have such supportive partners on both sides and to be able to forge a closer relationship between them means that we all benefit, and not just financially.
We benefit by knowing that we all have each other’s backs and we are all working toward the same goal. But also, we benefit in stepping outside of the confines of the business world to get to know each other on a deeper level. They say that everybody has a story, and when you share a meal, or a snug taxi ride, (or time on a very large boat as was the case with this trip) those stories tend to come out. We get to see each other in a different light, and we get to share our own story. Our lives are so often only connected by electronics and it’s easy to miss a meaning or an innuendo when we are only typing or texting. This trip allowed us to have real conversations that often ended in a different place than they began, which in turn, allows us to better serve our customers in the future because we understand their point of view.
We learned so much about our vendor as well, touring their entire factory and meeting the people who do the work, from the artists to the people who assemble the packaging, to the owner. The care that is taken with every single facet of production was astounding and we are so proud to be partners with a group of people who care so deeply about their products. We always say that we partner with the best vendors in the country and to be able to demonstrate this to our designers was priceless.
We look forward to future opportunities of bringing together more of our customers with our vendors to continue to strengthen all of our relationships because without them, we would not be able to do what we do, and we love what we do!
Women Who Shape Our Industry: The Team at Charles Eisen and Associates
As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it’s not lost on us that our industry is full of talented, hardworking, and brilliant women. From our customers in the architectural and design firms, to our wonderful manufacturers, we are surrounded by women from all occupations, each contributing greatly to achieve a common goal.
As the owner of Charles Eisen and Associates, Bob Eisen has surrounded himself with a crew of women who have come from a variety of backgrounds to make their way to the design community in Denver. Bob has been in the industry for many years, and has contributed in his own right as both President of Charles Eisen as well as being as a manufacturer’s rep. He is the fourth generation in the furniture business in Denver and a Colorado native.
Bob has two multi-line sales reps, Carol Hughes and Carrie Priller, who collectively cover Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Both women bring a plethora of experience to their role, and each has come into the industry through a different pathway.
Born in Maryland, Carol was enthusiastic about all things creative, which lead to a degree in Commercial Art from East Carolina University, with the intention of double majoring in Psychology & Commercial Art, she graduated in the latter and perused the former. Art led to furniture and her career launched in Sales with her first job in Furniture @ Cort . After working in Northern VA, DC, and Raleigh NC- a transfer to Denver Colorado found her meeting Bob and Chuck Eisen & building the Hospitality Rep Business at Eisen Associates
Carrie’s background was as a bank executive, travel agent, and business owner.
Julie Weaver is the Project Manager at Eisen and Associates, and she entered the design industry late in her career. Initially working in the cable industry with a Marketing background, Julie went back to pursue her Interior Design degree as her son was finishing high school-they graduated the same week! She is a Colorado native, but has lived all over the country, eventually making her way back to Denver and settling in at Eisen for the past year.
Jackie Subbert handles Customer Care and corrals the chaos as Eisen, working alongside Bob. Jackie is also a Colorado native and has been with Eisen for over 10 years.
Teri Patterson is the Accounting and HR Specialist for Eisen and Associates. She holds it all together for us! Teri started off in the medical field but then obtained her accounting degree and has been with Eisen since 1998.
It feels a bit like a family to be at Charles Eisen and Associates, but really, it is just a single branch of a much larger family that is the Colorado design industry.