Former Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. chairman and CEO Charles J. Pilliod Jr. died Monday, April 18. He was 97.
Pilliod was born in 1918 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and started working for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 1941 as a production trainee. In 1942, Pilliod enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Force and became a bomber pilot in WWII. He rejoined Goodyear in 1945 and worked his way up in the company.
Pilliod was named president of Goodyear in 1972 and promoted to CEO in 1974. He retired as CEO and chairman from Goodyear in 1983 and retired as a director in 1986. Pilliod is credited for pushing Goodyear into modern radial tire production. The tiremaker was also considered the world’s largest rubber company during his tenure as CEO.
Pilliod also ran the company during the historic decline of the rubber industry in Akron, Ohio, and was responsible for closing Goodyear’s plant that produced bias-ply tires and converting that building into Goodyear’s Akron Innovation Center.
Following his retirement, President Ronald Reagan appointed Pilliod as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico. He served as an ambassador until 1989. Pilliod also was a director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a founder member of the Business Roundtable.
He was also inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame and the National Tire Dealers & Retreaders Association Hall of Fame, and he received numerous awards for his work abroad.
Pilliod was preceded in death by his first wife, Marie Elizabeth, who died in 1985, and is survived by their three sons and two daughters. He is also survived by his second wife, Nancy, three stepchildren, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
