2016 Conditional Formatting Only format Columns with Certain text in first cell

I have sheet that is completely blank other than conditional formatting that checks input for double spaces and unabbreviated words. Users paste their information with rows and columns in different order so currently every formatting rule checks the entire page. I would like to set the formatting to only check cells that have certain text in Row A for conditions in the rest of this row. How would I go about this?
For example:

I want to fill cells in the Status_Code column with a color if they don’t contain the text “A1” but I would like to leave all other columns unaffected. Please Help.