5:45 a.m. The coffee goes on, then the computer. Checking and responding to e-mails by 6:15 and out the door by 7:00, making sure everything gets off to a smooth start with my own business.

The first call at 8:15 is from Joe Dobbins, our certification council chair. He is in charge of all of the IICRC Trade Advisory Committees, or TACs, and the divisions they fall under. Today he is bringing me up to date on the latest version of the IICRC HST Certification Course, which is the country-specific HST Canada. Ron Valega, the IICRC HST TAC Chair, and fellow Canadians Lee Senter, Stephanie Beatty and Con Schulz have all worked very hard to bring the first of several country-specific HST courses to fruition.

The good news: HST Canada is ready to be taught. Joe also updates me on the commercial carpet cleaning TAC and the new hard-surface cleaning division, after which we discuss the up-and-coming entry-level carpet maintenance apprentice course.

It's a 30-minute call, and I have to cut it short to walk into a 9:00 appointment. At 10:15 Ruth Travis, IICRC vice chair and marketing chair, calls to discuss some upcoming meetings and conventions, and who will be representing the IICRC. We also discuss some very important developments in the Carpet and Rug Institute, which is working with Professional Testing Laboratories in Dalton, Ga., on a NASA-based technology that can actually measure the amount of soil that is removed from a textile after cleaning. This could be the single largest thing to happen to the cleaning industry in our time. We finish by brainstorming on some of the issues surrounding hands-on training in our certification courses.

It's 11:00, and I've got a meeting, so I will have to catch up with Ruth later in the day.

I leave my very successful meeting in Toronto at 1:15 p.m. to retrieve five messages from: my office; Mike Reed; Darrell Paulson; Jeff Bishop; Paul Pearce; and Debbie Campbell.

At 2:00 I call Mike Reed, IICRC secretary and instructors and schools committee chair. We recap two and half days of planning and policy meetings we attended last week at IICRC headquarters. Our discussion leads to some of the agenda items for an upcoming meeting, and some issues that arose from the minutes of the previous meeting.

It's 2:45 when Darrell Paulson, IICRC vice chair and ASD TAC chair, calls back. He reports in about the on-going standards meetings. Darrell has been involved in the standards-writing process for many years. He has also been hosting ASD TAC/school meetings to revise and improve the course since last July.

After about 30 minutes the conversation shifts to strategic planning and long-term goals for the IICRC. I am thinking lunch, but I focus my thoughts on where we need to be 10, even 20 years from now. Everything from buying our own building to International efforts to legal matters associated with mold remediation, right back to the everyday carpet-cleaning professional in North America.

I have a quick conversation with Paul Pearce, IICRC international vice chair, at 3:45. We try to iron out my itinerary for a trip to the United Kingdom. Paul was the driving force behind the creation of the IICRC office in the UK. Now in it's second full year, the UK office has taken a lot of the administrative work away from headquarters in Vancouver, Wash.

I finally catch up with Ruth Travis about 5:30, and nail down some important dates for the IICRC. She has spent the day organizing date after date to give us the greatest exposure across the industry.

I call IICRC Examinations Chair Debbie Campbell around 7:15 to discuss the beta testing of some of our recently revised courses. Then it's a call to IICRC Technical Director Jeff Bishop about some more CRI developments.

Minutes later, IICRC Treasurer Ed Hobbs calls to discuss several budget items he has concerns over, and about the certified firms and registrant standards committees he had chaired for the past few years and just recently handed the reigns over to Scott Rendall and Barry Lichtenstein, respectively.

Ed and I finish up by discussing some future financial planning for the IICRC, and we both agree to call it a night about 9:30, because we need to go and check our e-mail. And of course, I have e-mails from Joe, Darrell, Ruth, Mike, and Paul.