More than 600 dealers from Missouri, Illinois, Iowa and Kansas attended Community Wholesale Tire Inc.'s annual ITD -- Independent Tire Dealer Buying Group Meeting and Trade Show held recently at the Gateway Conference Center in Collinsville, Ill.
(ITD-Independent Tire Dealer Buying Group is a network of 322 tire dealers under a common marketing umbrella supplied by Community Wholesale Tire from locations in St. Louis. and Kansas City, Mo.)
The event kicked off with a tour of Community Tire's St. Louis, Mo., warehouse facility. The trade show followed, which was made up of 40 booths representing all of Community Wholesale Tire suppliers plus equipment, auto parts, insurance and computer vendors.
Seminars were presented in the afternoon covering how to solve ride and vibration problems, credit card marketing and new product introductions. Paul Fiore of the Tire Industry Association (TIA) presented a tire technician training program. Community Wholesale Tire also offered to reimburse all ITD dealers 50% on their first year's dues if they siged up for TIA membership at the show.
After a dinner numerous awards were presented, including lifetime achievement awards to Harry Wilding and Ward McKnight of McKnight Tire of Jefferson City, Mo. Following the awards was a casino night.
