Michelin North America has recognized Specialty Tires of America Inc. (STA) with the 2009 Tire Privatization Key Supplier Award.
The award, established by Michelin, recognizes superior supplier performance in support of Michelin’s first three years of its contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.
In January 2007, the Department of Defencse selected Michelin to manage its tire program, STA reports. The 10-year, $1.7 billion contract requires Michelin to identify, procure and deliver tires for every military wheeled vehicle.
“In order to maintain the military’s tire industrial base, Michelin sources the majority of these tires from other tire manufacturers,” says James Griese, Michelin’s director of military tire sales. “With suppliers like Specialty Tires of America, we’ve been able to achieve impressive overall results. Those results also represent extensive savings for the Department of Defense in inventory and storage cost as well as a substantial increase in the efficiency for delivery to Defense Logistics Agency units from 45 days to an average of two days,” Griese adds.
“Specialty Tires of America is one of our most important partners in the success of this program and is a reliable, professional, and customer-oriented operation,” continues Griese. “STA is being recognized for providing the largest number of varying types and sizes of tires for the Department of Defense and also for the outstanding quality of their products. Specialty Tires of America has worked well with Michelin in a genuine spirit of partnership and in so doing, has enabled better value and on-time deliveries to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines of the United States of America. It is a great honor to partner with them serving our men and women in uniform,” Griese states.
Accepting the award on behalf of STA was Donald Mateer III, chief executive officer, and Eugene Baker, general manager of Sales. Mateer says, “The company was privileged to work with Michelin to efficiently and effectively meet the needs of our military.
“Gene Baker, Specialty’s general manager of sales, and I are pleased and honored to accept the 2009 TPI Key Supplier Award on behalf of the employees of the company whose quality efforts on a daily basis made this accomplishment possible.”
STA was founded in 1915 as McCreary Tire and Rubber Co. and has locations in Indiana, Pa., and Unicoi, Tenn.
