Charles Goodyear - Very Rare Signed Check
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The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is an American multinational tire manufacturing company founded in 1898 by Frank Seiberling and based in Akron, Ohio. Goodyear manufactures tires for automobiles, commercial trucks, light trucks, motorcycles, SUVs, race cars, airplanes, farm equipment and heavy earth-moving machinery. It also produced bicycle tires from its founding until 1976. As of 2017, Goodyear is one of the top four tire manufacturers along with Bridgestone (Japan), Michelin (France) and Continental (Germany).
The company was named after American Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber. The first Goodyear tires became popular because they were easily detachable and required little maintenance.
Though Goodyear had been manufacturing airships and balloons since the early 1900s, the first Goodyear advertising blimp flew in 1925. Today, it is one of the most recognizable advertising icons in America. The company is the most successful tire supplier in Formula One history, with more starts, wins, and constructors' championships than any other tire supplier. They pulled out of the sport after the 1998 season. It is the sole tire supplier for NASCAR series.
Goodyear was the first global tire manufacturer to enter China when it invested in a tire manufacturing plant in Dalian in 1994.
Goodyear was a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company opened a new global headquarters building in Akron in 2013.
The first Goodyear factory opened in Akron, Ohio, in 1898. The company originally manufactured bicycle and carriage tires, rubber horseshoe pads, and poker chips, and grew with the advent of the automobile.
In 1901, Goodyear founder Frank Seiberling provided Henry Ford with racing tires. In 1903, Goodyear president, chairman and CEO Paul Weeks Litchfield was granted a patent for the first tubeless automobile tire.
In 1916, Litchfield found land in the Phoenix area suitable for growing long-staple cotton, which was needed to reinforce its rubber in tires. The 36,000 acres purchased were controlled by the Southwest Cotton Company, formed with Litchfield as president. (This included land that would develop into the towns of Goodyear and Litchfield Park.)
In 1924, Litchfield forged a joint venture with the German Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Company to form the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation. From the late 1920s to 1940, the company worked with Goodyear to build two Zeppelins in the United States. The partnership continued even when Zeppelin was under Nazi control and only ended after World War II began.
On August 5, 1927, Goodyear had its initial public offering and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
By 1930, Goodyear had pioneered what would later become known as "tundra tires" for smaller aircraft—their so-called low inflation pressure "airwheel" aviation wheel-rim/tire sets were initially available in sizes up to 46 inches (117 cm) in diameter.
For the next sixty years Goodyear grew to become a multinational corporation with multibillion-dollar earnings. It acquired their rival Kelly-Springfield Tire in 1935. During World War II Goodyear manufactured F4U Corsair fighter planes for the U.S. Military. Goodyear ranked 30th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. WWII forced the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin partnership in December 1940. By 1956 they owned and operated a nuclear processing plant in Ohio.
In 1944, Goodyear created a subsidiary in Mexico in a joint venture with Compañía Hulera, S.A. de C.V., Compañía Hulera Goodyear-Oxo, S.A. de C.V. or Goodyear-Oxo.
Of the five biggest U.S. tire firms in 1970, today only Goodyear remains independent, due to the challenge posed by radial tire technology, and the varied responses. At the time, the entire U.S. tire industry produced the older bias-ply technology. Estimates to fit the factories with new machinery and tools for making this new product were between $600 million and $900 million. This was a substantial amount in a low margin business with sales revenue in the low billions. The U.S. market was slowly shifting towards the radial tire, as had already been the case in Europe and Asia. In 1968, Consumer Reports, an influential American magazine, acknowledged the superiority of radial construction, which had been developed in 1946 by Michelin.
When Charles J. Pilliod Jr. became CEO in 1974, he faced a major investment decision regarding the radial tire, which today has a market share of nearly 100%. Despite heavy criticism at the time, Pilliod invested heavily in new factories and tooling to build the radial tire. Sam Gibara, who headed Goodyear from 1996 to 2003, has noted that without the action of Pilliod, Goodyear "wouldn't be around today."
Sales for 1969 topped $3 billion. Five years later sales topped $5 billion and Goodyear boasted operations in thirty-four countries. In 1978, the original Akron plant was converted into a Technical Center for research and design. By 1985, worldwide sales exceeded $10 billion.
Goodyear Aerospace, a holding that developed from the Goodyear Aircraft Company after World War II, designed a supercomputer for NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1979, the MPP. The subsidiary was sold in 1987 to the Loral Corp. as a result of restructuring.
In 1987, Goodyear formed a business partnership with Canadian tire retailer Fountain Tire.
In the 1980s, incoming Goodyear CEO Robert E. Mercer argued that the tire and automobile-related businesses that formed the core of Goodyear to that date were slow growing and a handicap. He set a strategy "to get away from the cyclical nature of the automobile business'' through mergers or purchase of businesses unrelated to tires or vehicles.
In 1983, Goodyear acquired the natural gas company Celeron Corporation in exchange for stock valued at more than $740 million. It went on to invest heavily in gas exploration including the 1,200 mile crude oil California - Texas "All American" pipeline initially costed at 600 million but ultimately costing almost 1 billion dollars.
In October 1986 British financier James Goldsmith in conjunction with the investment group Hanson purchased 11.5% of Goodyear's outstanding common stock. This was viewed as a Greenmail attack by some, and as shareholder activism by Goldsmith, who viewed the company's move into areas far removed from tire development production and sale as commercially ill-advised and wanted the company to divest, especially, its oil interests which he viewed as depressing the value of the company.
On November 20, 1986, Goodyear acquired all of the stock held by Goldsmith's group (12,549,400 shares) at an above-market price of $49.50 per share. Goodyear also made a tender offer for up to 40 million shares of its stock from other shareholders at $50 per share. The tender offer resulted in Goodyear buying 40,435,764 shares of stock in February 1987.
As a result of the stock buyback, Goodyear took a charge of $224.6 million associated with a massive restructuring plan. It sold its Goodyear Aerospace business to Loral Corporation for $588 million and its Motor Wheel business to Lemmerz Inc. for $175 million. Two subsidiaries involved in agricultural products, real estate development, and a resort hotel in Arizona were sold for $220.1 million. The company also sold the Celeron gas and oil Corporation. In 1998, the All American Pipeline, Celeron Gathering, and Celeron Trading and Transportation were sold, largely completing what Goldsmith's hostile takeover had suggested good management should do. In the years following 1987, the company invested in its tire business. President Tom Barrett succeeded Chairman Robert Mercer in 1989, and a process began of modernising, expanding and developing its plants, for instance in Kelly-Springfield's North Carolina, Lawton, Oklahoma, Napanee, Canada, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Scottsboro, Alabama. In the 2000s, the move of business into low-wage counties, facilitated by GATT (which Goldsmith had warned government against, calling it "a policy to impoverish"), resulted in plants across North America being shuttered, for instance Cumberland, Maryland; New Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Windsor, Vermont were closed.
The last major restructuring of the company took place in 1991. Goodyear hired Stanley Gault, former CEO of Rubbermaid, to expand the company into new markets. The moves resulted in 12,000 employees being laid off.
In 2005, Titan Tire purchased the farm tire business of Goodyear, and manufactures Goodyear agricultural tires under license. This acquisition included the plant in Freeport, Illinois.
In the summer of 2009, the company announced it would close its tire plant in the Philippines as part of a strategy to address uncompetitive manufacturing capacity globally by the end of the third quarter of that year.
Goodyear announced plans to sell the assets of its Latin American off-road tire business to Titan Tire for US$98.6 million, including the plant in Sao Paulo, Brazil and a licensing agreement that allows Titan to continue manufacturing under the Goodyear brand. This deal is similar to Titan's 2005 purchase of Goodyear's US farm tire assets.
In 2011, more than 70 years after the dissolution of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, it is announced that Goodyear will partner with Zeppelin again (the legacy company Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik) to build more zeppelins together.
In 2018, Goodyear and Bridgestone announced the creation of TireHub, a joint wholesale distribution network across the United States. At the same time, Goodyear also announced that it was ending its distribution relationship with American Tire Distributors, the largest tire wholesaler in the US.
In 2018, Goodyear was ordered to pay $40.1 million to J. Walter Twidwell, who claimed he developed mesothelioma because of exposure to asbestos. After the trial, Goodyear asked the New York Supreme Court for a new trial. Goodyear attorney James Lynch said Goodyear did not receive proper consideration from the jury. Lynch said that the other side's attorneys engaged in character assassinations against expert witnesses. During closing remarks, the attorneys for Twidwell put up a slide with the heads of Goodyear's expert witnesses pasted onto "insulting caricatures."
- 1898: Goodyear founded
- 1899: Automobile tires added to the original product line of bicycle tires, carriage tires and horseshoe pads
- 1901: Seiberling makes racing tires for Henry Ford
- 1903: Paul Litchfield granted patent on first tubeless automobile tire (Litchfield would go on to become president of Goodyear-Zeppelin, then board chairman)
- 1908: Ford's Model T is outfitted with Goodyear tires
- 1909: First pneumatic aircraft tire
- 1911: First airship envelope
- 1912: Goodyear blimp first debuts
- 1917: Made airships and balloons for the U.S. military during World War I
- 1919: Tires on the winning car at the Indianapolis 500
- 1924: Zeppelin patents acquired, joint venture Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation formed with the German company
- 1925: Pilgrim is launched, the first commercial non-rigid airship to use helium
- 1926: World's largest rubber company, based on sales of $230,161,356
- 1927: Initial public offering
- 1929: Construction of world's largest airship dock started in Akron
- 1929: Introduction of first-known example of low-pressure tundra tires for aviation, invented by Alvin J. Musselman as Goodyear "Airwheels"
- 1935: Acquired Kelly-Springfield Tire
- 1937: First American-made synthetic rubber tire
- 1940: In December, Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation dissolved with WWII straining partnership
- 1942: Awarded contract to build FG-series Corsair naval fighter planes
- 1944: Tire testing begins near San Angelo, Texas
- 1947: First nylon tires developed
- 1949: First television advertising with sponsorship of "The Goodyear Review," hosted by Paul Whiteman
- 1954: First nationwide strike in company's history lasted 52 days
- 1956: Goodyear-operated U235 atomic processing plant opens in Ohio
- 1957: Goodyear Proving Grounds for tire testing, near San Angelo, Texas, is rebuilt
- 1958: Production of foam-padded instrument panels begun for 1959 model cars
- 1962: Goodyear racing tires used on more winning stock and sports cars than any other brand
- 1963: Goodyear produces its one billionth tire
- 1965: Radial-ply tires made available in a full range of sizes to auto manufacturers
- 1967: Goodyear introduces the Polyglas tire, one of the first wide-tread bias-belted fiberglass tires, which along with similar tires from competitors such as the Firestone Wide-Oval would become regular equipment on 1970 to 1974 models, which would be superseded by radial tires beginning in 1975.
- 1969: Sales reach $3 billion
- 1970: First tires on the moon (Apollo 14)
- 1974: Sales reach $5 billion
- 1975: All tires used in Indianapolis 500 supplied by Goodyear
- 1976: Chemical Division shipped first shatterproof polyester resin bottles
- 1977: Industry's first all-season tire (Tiempo) introduced
- 1978: Akron plant converted into Technical Center for R&D
- 1983: Three billionth tire produced
- 1984: Worldwide sales exceed $10 billion
- 1986: James Goldsmith takeover attempt and resulting restructuring
- 1987: Completion of the California - Texas "All American" oil pipeline
- 1991: Aquatred tire introduced
- 1992: Began selling tires at Sears stores
- 1993: Opened first tire store in Beijing, China
- 1993: Inauguration of Dalian plant, China
- 1994: "electronic store" opened on CompuServe
- 1995: Worldwide sales exceed $13 billion
- 1995: Bought Polish Tire Company Dębica
- 1998: Sold the All American Pipeline and Celeron businesses
- 1999: Announced $1 billion global alliance with Japan's Sumitomo Rubber Industries, which had rights to the Dunlop tire brand in much of the world, to establish six joint ventures in North America, Europe and Japan
- 2000: Formed an Internet-based purchasing alliance with five other rubber companies called RubberNetwork.com
- 2003: Quarterly dividend to shareholders eliminated
- 2004: Assurance TripleTred and ComforTred tires introduced
- 2005: North American farm tire operations sold to Titan Tire Corporation
- 2006: Goodyear blimp made maiden voyage in China
- 2007: Engineered Products Division sold to Carlyle Group; EPD is renamed Veyance Technologies
- 2008: Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Association trust (VEBA) approved by U.S. District Court, funded with $1 billion
- 2009: Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max tire introduced in North America
- 2010: Plans announced to sell European and Latin American farm tire businesses
- 2011: After being dissolved during WWII, Goodyear and Zeppelin's legacy company partner again to build more airships together
- 2013: New headquarters complex opens in Akron
- 2015: Goodyear and Sumitomo announced that they would dissolve their worldwide partnership.
- 2018: The company ranked 187th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States companies by revenue marking its 24th year on the list
- 2020: The company unveiled a self-regenerating concept tire with artificial intelligence features that allow the tire treads to change according to the environment and climate. The technology also uses sensors to learn from driver behavior. Information is sent to Goodyear's cloud servers where it is processed to build drivers' profiles, allowing predictions to be made based on drivers' data.
Board of directors
- James A. Firestone
- Werner Geissler
- Peter S. Hellman
- Richard J. Kramer
- W. Alan McCollough
- John E. McGlade
- Roderick A. Palmore
- Stephanie Streeter
- Thomas H. Weidemeyer
- Michael R. Wessel
- Laurette T. Koellner
- Thomas L. Williams
Former Board members include Shirley D. Peterson, William J. Contay, James C. Boland and Rodney O'Neal. Richard Kramer is the chief executive officer and president of the company (since 2010), succeeding Robert J. Keegan.
- Dunlop Tyres (North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand)
- The Kelly Springfield Tire Company (United States)
- Fierce
- Lee
- Sava (Slovenia)
- Fulda (Germany)
- Dębica (Poland)
- Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems, LLC
- Bluestreak (Indonesia)
- Regetta (Australia) Distributed by KMART
- LS2000 (Japan) Distributed by Goodyear Autocare
- Goodyear Auto Service Centers
- Goodyear Chemical
- Just Tires
Lilly Ledbetter sued Goodyear claiming she was paid less than men doing the same work. She won the suit and was awarded $360,000, the jury deciding that Goodyear had clearly engaged in discrimination. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. In Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 550 U.S. ___ (2007), Justice Alito held for the five-justice majority that employers are protected from lawsuits over race or gender pay discrimination if the claims are based on decisions made by the employer 180 days ago or more. The United States Congress overturned this decision by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 which was the first bill signed into law by President Obama.
This was a case of statutory rather than constitutional interpretation. The plaintiff in this case, Lilly Ledbetter, characterized her situation as one where "disparate pay is received during the statutory limitations period, but is the result of intentionally discriminatory pay decisions that occurred outside the limitations period." In rejecting Ledbetter's appeal, the Supreme Court said that "she could have, and should have, sued" when the pay decisions were made, instead of waiting beyond the 180-day statutory charging period.
Justice Ginsburg dissented from the opinion of the Court, joined by Justices Stevens, Souter, and Breyer. She argued against applying the 180-day limit to pay discrimination, because discrimination often occurs in small increments over large periods of time. Furthermore, the pay information of fellow workers is typically confidential and unavailable for comparison. Ginsburg argued that pay discrimination is inherently different from adverse actions, such as termination. Adverse actions are obvious, but small pay discrepancy is often difficult to recognize until more than 180 days of the pay change. Ginsburg argued that the broad remedial purpose of the statute was incompatible with the Court's "cramped" interpretation. Her dissent asserted that the employer had been, "Knowingly carrying past pay discrimination forward" during the 180-day charging period, and therefore could be held liable.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst identified Goodyear as the 19th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States, with roughly 4.16 million lbs of toxins released into the air annually. Major pollutants included sulfuric acid, cobalt compounds, and chlorine. The Center for Public Integrity reports the Goodyear has been named as a potentially responsible party in at least 54 of the nation's Superfund toxic waste sites. On February 8, 2008, Goodyear announced the launch of an environmentally friendly tire produced using a cornstarch-based material. The Goodyear Eagle LS2000 partially replaces the traditional carbon black and silica with filler materials derived from corn starch thanks to "BioTRED compounding technology". The new technology increases the tires "flexibility and resistance to energy loss", which extend the tires life-span and lessen the impact on the environment. Similarly, Goodyear announced on April 22, 2008, that it had joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's SmartWay Transport Partnership. The transport partnership is an attempt between the truck transportation industry and the EPA to reduce air pollution and greenhouse emissions as well as increase energy efficiency. The SmartWay partnership's tractors and trailers will use Goodyear's Fuel Max linehaul tires that increase fuel efficiency while reducing emissions. According to Goodyear and EPA officials "the fuel-efficient line-haul tires deliver up to 4% improved truck fuel economy, and when used with other SmartWay-qualified components, each 18- wheel tractor and trailer used in long-haul can produce savings of up to 4,000 gallons per year, or more than $11,000 annually."
On February 24, 2015, Goodyear agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle Foreign Corrupt Practices Act "FCPA" charges that two of its African subsidiaries allegedly paid $3.2 million in bribes that generated $14,122,535 in illicit profits. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission "SEC" FCPA charges involved Goodyear subsidiaries in Kenya and Angola for allegedly paying bribes to government and private-sector workers in exchange for sales in each country. According to the SEC because "Goodyear did not prevent or detect these improper payments because it failed to implement adequate FCPA compliance controls at its subsidiaries" and, for the Kenyan subsidiary, "because it failed to conduct adequate due diligence" prior to its acquisition. It was not alleged that Goodyear had any involvement with or knowledge of its subsidiaries' improper conduct.
On August 18, 2020, WIBW, a local CBS-affiliate television station, reported that an internal PowerPoint slide on political attire from a Topeka, Kansas, training seminar was circulating on social media. The leaked slide depicted a "zero tolerance" policy towards some political movements. President Donald Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear tires the following day, as Trump campaign attire such as MAGA hats were among the banned products. Goodyear responded via Twitter, stating "the visual in question was not created or distributed by Goodyear corporate, nor was it part of a diversity training class". Following release of the audio that went with the slide, Goodyear admitted the slide was used at its Topeka factory.
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