The IICRC is back. During a board meeting on March 16, the board of directors voted to change the name of the organization back to the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) and voted to retain the use of the name The Clean Trust as a service mark for the organization.

Since the initial rebranding in October 2011, board members talked to shareholder associations, instructors, distributers, general registrants, schools and more, to understand the sentiment of the industry. The board heard lots of feedback – positive, negative and neutral – from all interested stakeholders and took everything into consideration before making the decision to reverse the name change. 

The original driver of the name change was to help increase traction outside the industry. In registrant surveys taken in 2010 and 2011, name recognition outside the industry was cited as the organization’s greatest challenge. In the comments received, most of the feedback was a request for more end-user awareness. Recognizing the previous board’s efforts to choose a name that will enable the organization and our registrants to achieve greater end-user awareness, the current board decided to return to the IICRC for the organization but keep The Clean Trust as a service mark.

The organization has clearly designated when to use the IICRC logo and when to use The Clean Trust service mark for end-users in our brand guidelines. These will be shared with all registrants – and can be requested again any time through headquarters. Moving forward, whenever The Clean Trust is listed, it will be noted that it is an IICRC program – linking the two together. 

Following the Certification Council meeting last month, in addition to having headquarters as a resource, the IICRC has implemented several new channels to stay connected to the organization. On April 22, the IICRC launched the new and improved IICRC.org, a new Twitter handle and a new Facebook page. Additionally, a new e-newsletter will be in registrants’ inboxes shortly, which will replace the previous hardcopy, quarterly newsletter enabling more frequent communication.

In standards news, The IICRC S500 Water Damage Restoration standard continues to move forward with its revision and will be ready for peer review by the end of the year. The S-600 Carpet Installation standard is in the editing stages and will be under peer review by fall as will the S800 Carpet inspector standard and guidelines.

The new Mold Removal Specialist (MRS) certification is available for candidates to apply and complete the testing. This designation is also being submitted for third party accreditation.

A new director of education and certification has been added to the staff of the IICRC with a plan to continually upgrade and modernize the IICRC programs bringing in features such as more distance learning options, computer based testing, updates curricula and more.

As we move into summer, the IICRC continues to lead the way in training, certification and standards.