Less than a year into a five-year probation period for illegally importing thousands of lamps from China, CEO Steve Crowder resigned earlier this month.
GuildMaster Vice President of Sales Margaret Powers said Crowder left the home furnishings company in June to pursue separate interests.
“We have engaged an industry consultant, Randy Eller, to work with us in finding us a new CEO or a new strategic partner,” Powers said. “He’s a very well-known consultant in the home-furnishings industry, and that’s why we engaged him.”
Powers deferred additional questions about the transition to Eller.
Mount Juliet, Tenn.-based Eller Enterprises consults with companies and individuals primarily in the home accent, furniture and giftware industries, according to
EllerEnt.com.
“I am conducting a search for a new CEO at GuildMaster, and I have received several resumes from qualified candidates,” Eller said in an email. “We are going through a normal process in these types of situations.”
Eller couldn't point to a timeline to fill the position, but he said the GuildMaster board has retained him as interim CEO in the meantime.
Attempts to reach Crowder for comment were unsuccessful by deadline.
On June 10,
FurnitureToday.com reported Crowder’s resignation, quoting Crowder as saying he thought he had positioned the company well for growth and that he looked forward to the next challenge.
During the past year, GuildMaster secured a
Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in late September, one month after it received its probation sentence for using counterfeit safety certification labels on thousands of lamps imported from its manufacturer in China and later confiscated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in early 2012.
In the reorganization, a small group of unnamed investors committed over $1 million to help the home furnishings firm pay down its debts and chart a new course. According to Springfield Business Journal archives, Eller was listed as one of five members on GuildMaster’s board of directors at the time of the reorganization.
In December, GuildMaster opened its first designer showroom in Springfield at 3055 E. Division St., which shares the same address as Jack Stack’s Great Game of Business. Helping to finance GuildMaster during the years was Quest Capital Alliance, a venture capital firm born with the help of funds from the Stack-led Springfield Remanufacturing Corp.[[In-content Ad]]
