NEWH - Fall 2015 - 22

Q&A

Meet Stephanie
Deshaies

Vice president of administration for the
Northwest chapter and market manager at Architex

How did you become involved in NEWH?
I have always believed it is important to stay involved with the
design community. Like many members of our board of directors,
I am a past scholarship award recipient. When the Northwest
chapter approached me about leadership in our chapter, I decided
that it was time to give back and contribute to the NEWH legacy
of building the future of hospitality design.

in Seattle. We packed the house with our largest attendance for
this event and gave away a record $15,000 in scholarships. In
January, we not only sent a significant number of board members
to the NEWH Leadership Conference in Dallas, but we were able
to send a scholarship recipient as well. We just had our annual
wine tasting fundraiser, Savor Uncorked, at the Space Needle in
Seattle, and we raised a record number of proceeds.

What has NEWH done for you, both personally and professionally? 
Serving on the Northwest chapter board has been a delightful
experience. In my 20 years I have served on many boards and this
experience has been the most joyful. I have grown professionally
through the leadership training that NEWH offers and now have
the opportunity to mentor others and help them grow.

Tell us a bit about Architex and what's new.
Architex has always been a family-owned company, so we can
remain nimble and close to our customers. We have always been
about performance and integrity. Over the last seven years we
have developed product specifically for the hospitality market-
beautiful residential-looking textures and luxury velvets that
hit a hospitality pricepoint. Because performance is what we do
best, we have been able to also hit a high level of durability and
cleanability with our vast finish technology offerings such as the
Write Off ink-resistance technology for our non-woven fabrics
and our recently expanded Ultraposh series.
We are getting back into the wallcovering market, and I
am super excited about it. Also, we are developing a specialized
custom program where the sky is the limit. Stay tuned for more
on this in 2016.

In your role with the Northwest chapter, what do you have planned
for the rest of 2015? What are you most looking forward to?
I oversee the education, scholarship, and community service
committees, and it has been our goal to increase visibility in the
schools. We have taken an approach of creating a network of
liaisons that consist of educators and students who engage on
social media to get our scholarship and networking opportunities
in front of students. Too often people are overwhelmed by emails,
but we are on social media all the time. We have created a closed
Facebook group for our student contacts so they can stay up to
date on the latest scholarship and networking opportunities the
same way they plan their social lives.
We have been moving toward a more methodical approach
for recruiting board members and looking for specific skill sets
that will elevate our chapter. We are starting to implement a
three-year plan of a mentor year, where we have the candidate
for a position shadow the current board member to have a deeper
understanding of the role and the way our board works.
Also 2015 is our biannual Regional Tradeshow year. It should
be a terrific year for us as we have a full house of vendors. I'm
looking forward to next year when I will transition to chapter
president, and I will plan our first-ever strategic planning winter
retreat.
What were some of the highlights of 2014 and the beginning
of 2015?
In November, we were proud to tie our annual scholarship event,
Elevate, to the centennial celebration of the historic Smith Tower

22 www.newh.org

Latest travel highlight?
In January, I celebrated my 40th birthday with an extraordinary
transformational yoga retreat in Tulum, Mexico. I would love to
go back someday or perhaps go to another yoga retreat in India.
Trend you are paying attention to in the industry?
I am mildly obsessed with trend watching, and I love to watch
color. Right now I am seeing a shift to a much more muted, low
chroma color palette. I have to wonder if the trend is being driven
by the filters that we use on our phone apps, such as Instagram.
We often view the world through a lens, and it is impacting the
way that we see beauty. It is influencing advertisements, and I am
curious how it will affect products and interiors.
When you aren't working or at an NEWH event, where can we find
you?
On the floor playing with my two children and two pugs, sharing a
glass of wine with my composer husband, or on my yoga mat. ❙❘❚
http://www.newh.org
NEWH - Fall 2015

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