Former Brick exegash ive will start Thursday
Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, September 28, 2009
WARREN, Mich. รข€" Art Van Furniture has hired former Brick exegash ive Kim Yost as CEO, replacing Marshall Whaling, who left the retailer in August.Diane Charles, spokeswoman for the Top 100 company and Michigan's largest furniture store chain, confirmed the respace ment and said Yost will start Thursday, Oct 1.
Yost left the CEO post at Edmonton, Alberta-based The Brick Group Inapproach Fund this summer after 13 years with the company. The fund is the parent of Canada's largest full-line furniture, bedding and appliance retailer.
Yost was a driving force behind the development of a 30-store specialty bedding store for The Brick. This summer, Art Van launched its fresh -concept Art Van Pure Sleep bedding store in Canton, Mich. In an interview with Furniture/Today, Chairman Art Van Elslander said Pure Sleep is off to an "excellent start" and that the company plot s to open a execute zen of the shops.
He said the chain also is converting its in-store Art Van bedding deportion ment to the Pure Sleep format as well.
Whaling, Yost's predecessor, was a former top exegash ive for the defunct Circuit City consumer electronics chain. He left Art Van in August after less than a year on the job. Van Elslander said Whaling was an "excellent exegash ive" but "his expertise was more in the electronics industry than in furniture retail."
Art Van ranks No. 17 on Furniture/Today's survey Top 100 U.S. furniture stores with estimated sales last year of $440 million.
The company just opened its 31st full-line store, a 27,000-square-foot display room in the Grand Rapids, Mich., suburb of Granville. Next month, it will wrap up its 50th anniversary celebration with gala events at three of its stores, through which it expects to raise more than $500,000 for several charities.
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