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INTERVIEW
TIA Celebrates 100 Years of Service to the Tyre Industry
against efforts by vehicle manufacturers to require consumers to go back to dealers. President Biden has signed an Executive Order urging the Federal Trade Commission to draft legislation to protect dealers in this regard. There has always been a need for dealers to come together and have a voice, and that need continues today.”
In terms of challenges for the future, Littlefield points to technology as being of key importance. Technology is both expensive and var y fast moving, he points out, but is obviously required both by dealers and the Association itself. With this in mind the Association is currently looking to upgrade its website thanks to the input of VP Marketing and Communications, Dave Zielasko.
Covid-19, of course, has also been a major challenge, especially in the passenger tyre sector. Although the Association moved quickly at
state and federal level to have members defined as essential businesses, the impact has been heavy on car tyre dealers, simply because people have not been driving. The Association has been working hard securing Government loans for members to help them through the pandemic, and this has helped to some degree. “We are now seeing stores reopen around the countr y and are hoping to get back to pre-pandemic days soon,” said Littlefield. “We’re not quite there yet, but we are moving in right direction.” Dealers have also experienced other difficulties including problems recruiting drivers, but also the problem of getting people back to work due to the degree of support offered by
the government, which, according to Littlefield, has in many cases made it more lucrative for workers to remain at home rather than return to work. “The Government has tried hard to help but they have put members in a difficult
One hundred years ago, a group of 500 tyre dealers assembled in Chicago in the USA, to work out how they could work together to help each other face the massive changes that were affecting the automotive industry. In the early 1920s, the industr y was very different to what it is today. Businesses who sold tyres came from a wide variety of backgrounds including blacksmiths, general stores, and livery stations amongst others, but at that time there was a general impetus in the US towards to foundation of trade associations so that small business could have a say in industry decisions.
What emerged from that initial meeting in Illinois was the beginnings of the national now know as the Tire Industry Association. Over its one hundred years of history the association has been through plenty of changes. It has been split into two (at one time
there were two competing associations, the National Tyre Dealers and Retreaders Association – NTDRA, and the American Retreaders Association – ARA), and then re-amalgamated under the TIA name into the modern body it is today. There have been a total of 14 Executive Directors over the Association’s history including legendary names such as Phil Friedlander and Ed Wagner.
In recognition of this important event in the history of TIA, we recently took the opportunity
to talk to the Association’s Current Executive Director, Roy Littlefield, about TIA’s achievements over the years, and the Association’s plans for the future.
Littlefield, who has been with the Association since 1979 and is the Association’s second- longest-serving Executive Director, has experienced significant change during his career and says the Association, having spent much time and effort over the past 20 years building up its training programmes and finances, is now in the best state it’s ever been.
We asked Roy what he considered to be TIA’s biggest achievements over the years, and he pointed to two key areas highlighted in TIA’s mission statement, namely training and government affairs. “In training we have made things much more professional over the last 25 years,” he commented. “We have programmes covering everything from industrial to passenger to truck tyres and have trained over 200,000 technicians over last two decades, also helping to keep insurance costs down. “In the area of government affairs, meanwhile, we protect members’ interests in various areas. It’s vital that the industry has a voice. An example is the executive order recently signed by President Biden on the “Right to Repair”, which aims to protect repair companies and technicians
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