The Partners In Excellence Award is based on leadership excellence and revolves around achieving results. Those results are base on sort of a three-legged stool comprising the following criteria:

1) Cast Excellence, recognizing and appreciating diversity, communicating effectively, modeling Disney heritage, and promoting innovation and change.

2) Guest Satisfaction, delivering magical and memorable experiences for guests, clients and creating Disney magic.

3) Business Results, continuing to enhance Disney’s position as the world’s premier entertainment and hospitality organization including productivity, producing quality work, identifying growth opportunities, and lowering cost effectively.

“This is certainty a highlight in my life and was a great experience receiving this recognition and meeting with Mr. Weiss” states Tedesco, “I have been able to incorporate much of what I have learned at Disney into my own company.”

Tedesco is President of Devon Chase & Company, a furniture distributor and a NAUI Course Director for Walt Disney World.

(L to R) Susan Tedesco, Al Weiss and Thomas Tedesco

Decks:
Decks are the platforms on which the futon rests for both convertible futon sofa-bed frames and stationary platform beds.

Seat Deck:
The seat deck is the deck on which the user sits when a futon sofa-bed is in the sitting position.

Back Deck:
The back deck is the deck which the user leans back on when a futon sofa-bed is in the sitting position.

Tri-fold:
A convertible futon sofa-bed frame that utilizes three decks. The futon mattress can hang over the back of the frame, be folded under itself on the seat deck, or lay flat as a chaise lounge style seat. The tri-fold allows the futon mattress to fold twice along its usually shorter width.

Bi-fold:
A convertible futon sofa-bed frame that utilizes two decks. The bi-fold allows the futon mattress to fold once along its length.

Kicker:
The kicker is usually a small piece of wood or plastic that wedges itself between the seat deck and the back deck so the frame can be returned from a sleeper to a sofa in a simple, fluid motion. Several industry patents have been granted for the kicker.

Wall-Hugger:
A wall-hugger is a frame that can open to a sofa-bed without moving the base of the frame away from the wall. We categorize wall-huggers by their tolerance. A zero tolerance wall-hugger can be placed directly against the wall and still not touch the wall when converting. Other wall-huggers must be placed a short distance from the wall. These are called two, three, four etc. inch tolerance wall-huggers. Be sure to ask your manufacturer about the tolerance of their wall-hugger.

The arm designs have the looks and design characteristics found in traditional furniture. Today it is hard to distinguish between the looks of a conventional sofa and a futon. The futon also has a great advantage over its counter part the sofa bed in that the mattress is much more comfortable to sit and sleep on. Futon frames are unfolded from the front or the back. It takes only seconds to convert from a sofa to a bed.