Solomon Coyle

Barry Edward Coyle, a founding principal of the Solomon Coyle team and a highly regarded consultant in the contract furniture industry, passed away November 15, 2010. Barry was dedicated to the identification, development and sharing of industry best practices throughout his career. In addition to his work as a consultant, Barry was well-known as a frequent speaker at industry events, author of several industry standard workbooks, and as an informative instructor for training programs.

Barry offered methods and insights drawn from a substantial body of professional experience. Following graduation from Stanford University with a B.A. in economics, he served as a facility services manager, and then held various management positions in the business interiors industry include VP of operations, designer and project manager.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Barry pursued the ground-breaking work of developing installation estimating prototypes and economic models for dealer and installation businesses. He subsequently codified his analysis in a series of workbooks: Installation Estimating, Installation Economics, Dealer Position Descriptions, Dealer Best Practices and Dealer Economics and Operational Models as well as shared his research with the industry through presentations and training programs.

With the establishment of BEC in 1992, Barry became a full-time contract furniture industry consultant. In 2003, Barry partnered with his long-time colleague David J. Solomon in the formation of Solomon Coyle, LLC, to provide consulting services, staff development programs and business tools for office furniture dealer development. Between the two practices, Barry consulted with more than 125 dealers, independent installation companies and furniture manufacturers.

As part of his commitment to industry best practices, Barry worked extensively with industry associations and peer groups. He served on the Board of Directors for the Office Furniture Dealers Alliance (OFDA) from 2001 to 2009, and regularly presented at OFDA Conferences and NeoCon. He also served as the Executive Director for the Facilities Services Network (FSN), and worked with the High Performance Dealer Alliance (HPDA), National Dealer Alliance (NDA), National Independent Contract Dealer Council (NICDC) and Workplace Alliance (WPA) dealer peer groups.

A special OFDA Scholarship program in memory of Barry and his strong commitment to higher education and training has been established with a goal to raise sufficient funds to create a named scholarship in his honor. To learn more, please visit the Barry Coyle Scholarship Fund Page