Eight industry leaders will be inducted into the Tire Industry Hall of Fame this year, including the retired leaders of the nation’s two most recognizable companies – Hercules Tire & Rubber Co. and Big O Tire.

Elected to the Hall of Fame were Norman Affleck, retired president and CEO of Big O Tires; and Craig Anderson, retired president and CEO of Hercules Tire & Rubber Co.

In addition, six other tire industry pioneers were elected to the Hall of Fame as Historical Contributors: Ira J. Cooper, who formed the Cooper Corp., later known as Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.; Robert Eisentrout, former president of BFGoodrich Tire Co. and the acknowledged father of American performance tires; Otto and Willy Gruber, founders of Stahlgruber Otto Gruber GmbH, known as Rema Tip Top; and Rudy Holman and Neil McIntyre, developers of the Orbitread tread stock extruder. 

The eight will formally be inducted in special ceremonies during TIA’s annual Breakfast With the President event on Tuesday, Oct. 30, just before the start of the 2007 SEMA Show. In addition, industry analyst Saul Ludwig, managing director for KeyBanc Capital Markets, will receive TIA’s Friend of the Industry Award.

Affleck was a founding dealer member and the first president of Big O Tires Inc., a position he held for 25 years. The Colorado native and World War II veteran got involved in retreading following the war. Affleck struggled retreading tires – which was popular during the war due to rubber shortages – in a post-war world where everyone wanted new tires. It took him awhile to get his OK Tire business off the ground, but eventually he had four stores in the southwest.

Working with four other interested dealers, the group formed Big O Tires in 1962. Affleck envisioned a true franchise model for the organization and worked to create a system that offered marketing and training programs to franchisees. He flew all over the U.S. at his own expense to sign up aspiring Big O dealers.

He also worked to develop the product, marketing and training programs that put the company on the map, such as the Big O tire brand that was introduced in 1974; the Incentive Management Purchase Program that gave many young people a chance to own a Big O Tires store; unique tire warranty programs; distribution and merchandising programs; and the Big O “Blue Book,” a franchise manual that standardized customer service and business practices at all Big O locations.
Affleck retired in 1984, selling most of his stores to his managers. After retiring, Affleck, now 83, became involved in the tire recycling business, and continues as a consultant for various businesses. He resides in Denver with his wife of 62 years, Alva.

After graduating from Michigan State in 1963, Craig Anderson went right into Firestone’s executive management program, emerging in the company’s advertising and public relations department. He then took a series of marketing posts with various Firestone divisions before becoming vice president of marketing for Hercules in 1976.

By 1987, Anderson had become president and COO of Hercules, and guided the company through its transition from a retread stock supplier and small private brander to a full-line new tire and retreading equipment and rubber supplier. Under his leadership, Hercules began sourcing tires from Asia in 1979, launched the company’s TDW distribution program in 1987, and acquired Cedco Engineering in 1988, allowing Hercules to become a full-line supplier to the retreading industry.

The company continued to grow over the years with the addition of a state-of-the-art training facility, the acquisition of a tread stock plant from Mohawk Rubber in 1995 and the Electra Group of Canada in 1998 now known as Hercules Tire Company of Canada and Hercules Tire International.
And Anderson led Hercules through further changes and growth, as it departed the retreading business with the sale of that unit to Cooper Tire’s Oliver unit and became a new tire marketer and international distributor. In 2002, Hercules celebrated its 50th anniversary, a mere two years after topping $300 million in annual sales. Two years later, the company opened its first distribution center in China.

Anderson became CEO and vice chairman in 2005 with the sale of Hercules to equity firm FdG Associates, and retired in 2006. Craig and his wife, Mary Lou, now reside in Florida.

Historical Contributors
In 1923, brothers Otto and Willy Gruber founded Otto Gruber & Co., selling steel screws, compressors and hoists. The Grubers changed the name to Stahlgruber (“stahl” is German for steel) in 1928, and added various auto accessories and mechanic tools to its line.

While visiting a vulcanizer, the Grubers discovered that tire repair material was cut by hand from old tires. So in 1937, the Grubers began producing tube patches, sleeves and tire patches. Stahlgrubers’ big break came after World War II when it developed a cold vulcanizing method, allowing tube and tire repairs without the need for cumbersome heat presses.

AMF-Voit, a well-known maker of rubber products and retreading equipment, produced die-sized rubber for retreading. In 1960, two of its top researchers – Rudy Holman and Neil McIntyre, invented a process to replace this die size rubber with a continuous strip of rubber.

The process was patented and formed the basis for the creation of AMF-Voit’s famed Orbitread machine, the first piece of equipment developed to apply strip stock directly to buffed casings. It quickly became the “must have” piece of retreading equipment.

In 1970, Holman and McIntyre’s strip winding system was applied to new tire production, first with bias ply passenger tires and later to radial truck tires and then large earthmover tires.

Robert Eisentrout began his career with the then B.F Goodrich Tire Co. in the early 1970s, and rose through the sales and marketing ranks. Looking for a way to separate the Goodrich brand from the pack, and feeling that tires had become a commodity in consumers’ minds, Eisentrout took the brand to the racetrack.

Beginning with small car clubs and advancing through the ranks, within a few years the Goodrich brand had gained exposure. Eisentrout looked to capitalize on that and led the development of America’s first performance tire line – the T/A, including the Radial T/A, the first street tire certified for racing.

Eisentrout, by then heralded as the father of the American performance tire, had become president of the entire company in the early 1980s.

Ira Cooper (1874-1941) owned several wholesale tire and automotive part wholesale and retail locations when in 1917 he became a director of the Giant Tire Co. in Findlay, Ohio, a producer of tire repair patches, cement and rebuilt tires.

Three years later, Cooper merged his distribution business with Giant Tire Co. to form Cooper Corp. for the production of new tires, selling the tires through his existing wholesale business. He was its first president.

In 1930 , Cooper Corp. merged with Falls Rubber Co., forming Master Tire & Rubber Co. Ira Cooper remained with the company until he died in 1941. In 1946, as a tribute to his leadership, the board of Master Tire voted to change the name to Cooper Tire & Rubber Co.

Ira Cooper’s business philosophy – known by employees as the Cooper Creed – remains the basis by which the company operates today. As he described it to Tire Review magazine in 1926: “Our platform of business conduct has only three planks in it: good merchandise, fair play and a square deal. Good merchandise because it doesn’t pay to make, sell or use an inferior article. Fair prices that satisfy the user, leave the dealer with a profit and the maker with a margin to cover his labor, thought and investment. And a square deal to every one, every time, because you can’t beat a natural law and still progress and prosper.”