It was Day 148 of Lou Paige’s tenure as CEO and president of Englander and he was on the road — again.
Paige, a veteran of four decades in the mattress industry, was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on this hot summer day, visiting a longtime Englander retailer and seeing how the Englander brand is performing in the marketplace. The answer, it turned out, is well.
It wasn’t surprising that Paige was on the move. This road warrior, whose mattress travels have taken him around the world, knows firsthand the importance of building relationships with customers and prospects. And the best way to do that, he says, is with personal meetings.
So he sat down with top executives at Galleria Furniture and Mattress Outlet, a growing, six-store chain. The flagship store, whose showroom sprawls across 142,000 square feet, is located on the outskirts of Oklahoma City.
There he learned that the mattress category is driving success for Galleria Furniture. “It’s the highest-margin product in the store,” said Don Bilyeu, Galleria’s longtime general manager. “Everybody needs a mattress.”
Galleria Furniture aims for mattresses to account for a 25% share of its business, much higher than normal in a furniture store. “You have to invest in the mattress category,” Bilyeu said. “You will get back what you put into it.”
Englander, which accounts for about one-third of the mattress assortment, is a key player.
“Englander has my back,” Bilyeu said. “Retail is tough. It has its ups and downs. But things always work out well with Englander. We work well together.”
A key to that partnership is Englander’s business development manager in the Southwest, Dallas Tennyson, the grandson of Arlen Tennyson, a bedding veteran and former Spring Air chairman. “Dallas is the main reason Englander is still on our floor,” Bilyeu said. “I can call him anytime. He will take care of any problems we have.”
The Englander beds are co-branded with the Galleria name, which Tennyson, who accompanied Paige on his visit to the retailer, says is a big plus.
“Think about how well we take care of our customers,” Tennyson observed, “when we have both of our names on these beds.”
“I can’t be shopped by anyone else on our Galleria-Englander line,” Bilyeu said. “When our customers put their sheets on the bed, they see our Galleria name. They don’t forget it. They come to Galleria to buy from Galleria.”
Paige was impressed with Galleria’s mattress department, which is tucked into the right side of the store in attractive settings. The 15 Englander beds, topping out at about $2,000, are displayed to good advantage.
“They really focus on the mattress business,” he said. “It’s an impressive operation.”
Galleria understands the importance of the mattress category, Paige said, and that’s not a given for furniture stores. “You would be surprised how many furniture stores don’t get it when it comes to bedding,” he said.
His visit to Galleria was part of his retail outreach. “We have great relationships with our retailers, and I’m building on that,” he said.
Paige was named CEO and president of Englander shortly before the January Las Vegas Market. Stuart Carlitz, one of Englander’s board members, said Paige was right out of central casting. “Lou is the full package — an experienced sales and marketing professional who has strong contacts and is well respected for his insight and knowledge of our industry,” Carlitz said.
Paige has had key sales, marketing and merchandising roles across the mattress industry and is perhaps best known for his 15 years with Serta, where his responsibilities included international licensee relations.
He was right at home at Interzum 2025 in Cologne, Germany, where Englander hosted an international licensee meeting. Englander, which has 19 global licensees, is well positioned to gain more. “We are in 20 countries now, and we could easily add another 10 countries,” Paige said. Europe, South America and India are promising markets for Englander, a brand “viewed favorably around the world,” he added.
One of Paige’s first accomplishments at Englander was launching a national line, leveraging popular Englander models to create a line geared to larger regional and even national players. That’s one of the ways that Englander will grow its business this year.
Another is with a revamped website that elevates the Englander brand, one of the industry’s oldest, dating back to 1894. The consumer-facing website gives the brand a more contemporary feel, broadening its appeal. “It is helping us drive consumers to our retail partners,” Paige noted.
The website chronicles Englander’s rich history in the industry, which included a partnership with Goodyear in the 1950s to launch latex “airfoam” mattresses.
Paige sees latex bedding as a growth category. “Latex has a unique and great feel and a great features and benefits story,” he said. “Latex can gain sales velocity on retail floors. It’s all about educating the consumers and the retail sales associates.”
As he reviews his first five months at Englander, Paige offers an upbeat assessment. “We have set a strategy and we are executing it,” he said. “We have momentum and we want to keep moving ahead.”
That means more road trips for Lou Paige.
