Flooring company HMTX eliminates CSO position 

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HMTX Industries, a privately held maker of vinyl flooring for healthcare and residential construction, in March moved responsibilities for environmental sustainability and social impact programs, managed for the past nine years by Chief Sustainability Officer Rochelle Routman, to the sales and marketing executive it hired in December.

Routman signaled her departure from HMTX with a recent title update on LinkedIn. There was no formal external announcement by her or the company. However, HMTX’s sustainability and impact team now sits under Trevor Stromquist, senior vice president of sustainability, sales and marketing excellence, a corporate spokesperson confirmed.

During a nine-year tenure, Routman managed a organization-wide effort to improve disclosures about the environmental impact and health considerations associated with the material used in the company’s products. 

HMTX was one of the first vinyl flooring companies to create health and environmental product declarations and complete a number of high-profile certifications, including the Just and Declare labels from the International Living Future Institute, which examine criteria such as chemicals content and employee working conditions.

“These efforts helped boost the entire sector as the other flooring companies got on board,” Routman said.

Before joining HMTX, Routman spent four years with another flooring company, Mohawk Industries, where she developed its sustainability program. Her move to the flooring industry followed more than a decade of work as an environmental specialist for utilities including Georgia Power and Southern Company, where she prepared one of the company’s first sustainability reports and presented it to the board. 

Routman’s first involvement in the sustainability field was at Lockheed from 1990 to 1999, where she succeeded in making colleagues be less reactionary about environmental issues. “That was my main goal: to get people to think ‘beyond compliance,’” Routman said. “At the time, the term was ‘pollution prevention,’ which today would be somewhat equivalent to ‘circularity’ or ‘energy or waste reduction’. The metrics were the same, but the words were different.”

Routman was recognized for her pioneering work in 2014 as part of the inaugural cohort of the Women in Sustainability Leadership Awards. Five years later, she co-founded the alumnae association that took over the awards program in the 2020 timeframe. That group focuses on creating mentorship opportunities for up-and-coming sustainability professionals who identify as women.

What’s next? Routman is exploring board opportunities with both nonprofits and corporations.

For now, she has some words of advice for future leaders. “Avoid playing it safe in your career,” Routman said. “Your skills and talents are most needed in the industries that have the greatest environmental or social impact. Don’t be shy about seeking out these opportunities.”

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