Hercules Tire & Rubber Co.opened its doors for the first time in 1952. In honor of its 60th anniversary, the company opened the doors to its distribution center in Findlay, Ohio, on Sept. 8 -- and invited plenty of friends and family.
The guests, including retired General Manager and tire division Vice President Steve Buck, were treated to food, giveaways, kids' activities and warehouse tours.
The 400,000-square-foot Findlay distribution center is the largest of the company's 13 D/C's in the United States. Here are some warehouse facts.
* It houses more than 525,000 tires. (Hercules is getting ready to ship winter tires.)
* An average of 308,000 tires go in and out of the distribution center each month (first in, first out). Annually, that's 3.7 million tires.
* It has nine forklifts, 21 employees and 44 loading docks.
Consumer and commercial tires from the distribution center are delivered "well north" of Detroit, past Columbus and past Cleveland to the Pennsylvania border, according to the company.
The other Tire Dealers Warehouse (TDW) locations are Portland, Ore.; Union City, Bakersfield and Compton, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; San Antonio, Dallas and Houston, Texas; Orlando, Tampa and Miami, Fla.; and Chicago, Ill. The 13 D/Cs account for 1.37 million square feet of inventory space.
Vice President of Marketing Joshua Simpson says Hercules is looking to add a western D/C soon.
