NEW YORK, New York – After a career in textiles that started more than 40 years ago in a weaving mill, Roger Gilmartin has retired from his position as president and CEO of Covington Fabric & Design, LLC and leaves behind a storied history of international knowledge and experience.

His departure from Covington will not be one of total disconnect. He plans to remain a consultant for the company since for the last 40 years, his only hobby has been work – or so he says.

"I'm a very boring person," said Gilmartin.

It's hard to believe that as his life chronicle is one of world travel, family and building a solid reputation for Covington which helped him successfully lead the company through tribulation and secure its stability.

"One of the things we've done in the last ten months is that we've put together – what I would say in all modesty – the best management team in the business," said Gilmartin. He was of course referring to the Kahan family, which acquired Covington only about a year ago and the recruitment of Tom Bruno and Marion Murray to the company. "We've always had a first class sales force but we've strengthened even that. There's a terrifically strong team here with great knowledge and experience of what it takes to make a converter successful. That's one of the main building blocks of the future."

As for Gilmartin's future – much of it has been determined by his past. He looks back at a life of lots of work and success and looks ahead to new horizons. In his plans are ideas about teaching and giving back to the community. But first, it's time for a holiday; perhaps to India – a place he's never been to enjoy, only to work. Gilmartin grew up in a small suburb of Manchester in northern England. His working career started back in 1964 when he graduated college (university, as they call it there) and started to work for a small company no longer in existence as a technical apprentice, though he was destined to become a weaving manager, he said. He went to school for textile technology, though he originally had planned to be a journalist and was told he'd have more luck making money in the textile industry. Gilmartin laughed as he recalled the owner of the textile mill he worked at in college telling him, "Everybody thinks textiles is a dying industry, all the smart people are going into electronics – so the opportunity is going to be really big because no smart people are going to go into textiles."

He stayed with the small textile mill, living in England, until 1973 when he joined a division of Werner International, a management consultancy practice that specialized in the textile and apparel industry. From 1973 to 1990, Gilmartin worked in 44 different countries and by 1990, he had worked his way up the ranks to become one of three partners who ran Werner's business. But eventually the traveling became difficult to bear.

"In 1989 I spent 328 nights on the road," he said. "I went to Asia eight times that year from Europe. By 1988, I had three kids. I was 45. I needed to have a different lifestyle – stop traveling, be a husband and father." He came to America to run a subsidiary of Johnston Industries, Inc. where Covington was the largest customer. In 1995, Covington (then part of Covington Industries which owned a jobbing business in the UK, a weaving mill and Spectrum Fabrics) invited Gilmartin to work for them and in April of 1996, he started working there, running the fabrics division. In 2000, Gilmartin became the COO of Covington Industries Inc. In 2005, he began a process with a private equity group of buying the company – a transaction that eventually took place on Jan. 31, 2006, when Covington Holdings LLC was born. In March of 2008, the assets of Covington Holdings were purchased by the present owners (the Kahan family) who invited Gilmartin to stay on as president and CEO.

Since Gilmartin came to Covington, he's seen the industry go through many shifts and has aimed to respond to them by adjusting and shaping Covington's business model and offerings. He said that the supply base is much different now since products are being manufactured all over the world on nearly every continent.

"Many of Covington's manufacturing customers, people who make things with fabric – whether it's furniture, bedding, drapery, whatever – many of them now manufacture those products outside of the USA," he said. "So one of the things the company is able to do now is what people refer to as the China to China business. We do that with absolute confidence for the customer and ourselves because we've set up an infrastructure to support that business. Just as if we were making the goods in North or South Carolina, we have quality people on the ground and a very sophisticated quality control system here that monitors overseas."

Because many Asian companies have very strong presence in the Middle East, Gilmartin said Covington has focused its export efforts and resources on other areas where it is already strong, such as Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of the old British Commonwealth.

While Gilmartin feels confident that Covington will push through, his retirement comes at a time when the industry is suffering a severe crisis. "Nobody could foresee the meltdown that's taken place," he said in reference to the current global economic situation. "If you look at what happens to the textile industry in times of economic hardship, people obviously think, 'Do I [really] need a new sofa, new drapes, new jeans?'" But responding to his own point, Gilmartin noted the difficult financial times the company saw in 2007 before the Kahans bought the business and how Covington recovered.

"The Kahans – everything they said they were going to do, they've done," he said. Through all of it, Gilmartin said that the whole Covington team saw how wonderfully loyal its customers and vendors were.

"When you've got that loyalty and the right kind of team in house, there's nothing to stop Covington re-taking its leadership position in the industry," he said.