New Name, New Org, New Team

That new name is the result of Bridgestone/Firestone North America Tire’s reconfiguration of its medium truck tire business, which sees the formal melding of that group with Bandag.

Bridgestone Corp. bought Bandag, closing the $1.01 billion deal last June, when the company was renamed Bridgestone Bandag Inc.

As reported here a few weeks ago, BFNAT formally announced the consolidation at its Bizcon dealer meeting, held earlier this week in New York City. Some 1,000 U.S. and Canadian commercial dealers, retreaders and truckstop operators attended the two-day conference.

The new subsidiary of BFNAT will be headed by Saul Soloman as president, and will be headquartered at Bandag’s former Muscatine, Iowa, offices.

The most notable aspect of the consolidation is that BBTS will handle all of the sales, marketing, support and engineering for both new tires and retreading system products (including precure tread rubber).

Singh Alhuwalia will remain in Nashville as president of sales and marketing; those functions will also remain in Nashville.

Retreading equipment engineering and manufacturing will be based in Muscatine.

BBTS also announced that it was reconfiguring its sales regions, moving from four regions covering the U.S. and Canada to eight regions – seven for the U.S. and one for all of Canada.

Read more about the Bizcon meeting in the upcoming May issue of Tire Review. (Tire Review/Akron)

Ascot Supply Corporation, based in Newnan, Georgia, has selected Mark Paquette for the newly created position of vice president. In this position, Ascot Supply said Paquette will oversee the growth of the company's products, corporate profitability, manage marketing and advertising and assume many other responsibilities.

He will work under the direction of current President David Kessler and officially begin his new role on June 3. Paquette joined the tire and automotive industry in the early 1980s at his father's tire shop, and his contributions to Mohawk Rubber Sales were instrumental in the company's growth and eventual sale to Myers Tire Supply in 2021, according to Ascot Supply. Paquette eventually was given a promotion to the role of director of operations at Myers Tire Supply.