Home Improvement

Amid the gloom and doom this week around reduced traffic and a waning perception of its price advantage, Walmart got more potential bad news in the form of strong results from arch rival Target.

Westlake Village, Calif. -- Lowe's ranked highest in customer satisfaction among appliance retailers for a second consecutive year, achieving a score of 807 on a 1,000-point scale, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Appliance Retailer Satisfaction Study. The study measures satisfaction based on performance in six areas: sales staff and service; store facility; merchandise (i.e., variety of brands/models offered and availability of merchandise and product information); price; delivery service; and installation service.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill., and SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Sears Holdings announced that it is reaching out to the growing Latino market with the launch of Facebook.com/SearsLatino as well as its Twitter handle @SearsLatino.

ACE Hardware CFO and EVP Dorvin Lively is leaving the Oak Brook, Ill.-based hardware co-op to  pursue other interests.

Lively joined Ace about three years ago and was promoted to EVP in January 2011. On an interim basis, Lori Bossmann will oversee the finance department, while the co-op searches for a new CFO.

Lively was a professional accounting fellow at the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the early 1990s. He later became a senior VP and corporate controller at Toys “R” Us before moving on to Maidenform Brands, and then to Ace Hardware in 2008.

JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — Kathy Ireland has put her name on a new line of office furniture for Bush Furniture. The Kathy Ireland Office line will be available in retail stores as early as this fall.

Each of the four collections in the line - New York Skyline, Volcano Dusk, Sonnet and Grand Expressions – includes coordinated home office furnishings and storage accessories, creating a complete work-and-play environment for people in business and their families. 

Lowe’s home improvement stores, in partnership with General Electric (GE), will introduce an electric vehicle charging station for home or commercial use at five California stores this August. Following the California introduction, the E WattStation will be available to 60 total stores in September, Lowe’s said, and nationwide through Lowes.com.

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. — The NPD Group Inc. has named Kevin Gilbert as director of home improvement, reporting to Perry James, the president of home and office supplies. 

Prior to joining NPD, Gilbert was VP client solutions at SymphonyIRI, where he managed the Diageo and Kraft accounts. In addition to his role at SymphonyIRI, Gilbert spent many years in the packaged goods industry in category management, sales development, and trade planning roles, working with such companies as Kellogg, Bayer, and Pinnacle Foods.

Mooresville, N.C. -- Lowe’s Cos. said Friday it has promoted M. Lee Reeves to senior VP, deputy general counsel and assistant secretary.

Reeves, who joined Lowe’s in 2004 as senior counsel, will lead the corporate transactions, intellectual property and information technology legal teams as a part of his new role.