You might say Matt Wade, owner and president of Day and Night Tire Service Inc., has found his niche in life.
The unassuming 34-year-old runs two retread plants in Lakeland, Fla. They retread an average of 260 medium and light truck tires daily, good for the 71st spot on Modern Tire Dealer's "Top 100 retreaders in the U.S." list.
Wade also services the accounts that buy his retreads. That's it. But that's enough for him, the third-generation Wade to run the business.
"We've always focused on the niche markets. We don't do any retail so we don't have a thousand customers. We are able to focus truly on what the customer needs."
Day and Night Tire has four service trucks dedicated to one segment of the market, according to Wade. "We do a lot of refuse business. The service trucks service the garbage fleets 100%. We do a mounted wheel program for them."
Four delivery trucks service the needs of his other customers, including orange growers and local government agencies.
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The independent retreader and Tire Retread Information Bureau member produces both mold cure and precure retreads with different equipment depending on the need: an Oliver chamber, Mateuzzi buffer, CIMA molds, etc.
"He who presses the rubber makes the money," says Wade, who recently became an Acutread mold cure retreader. "On the truck tire side, we have to do something to control costs."
He refers to Acutread as a "remanufacturing" process. "It's the wave of the future. As an independent, I think that's the way it will be."
His grandfather, Chester, started the business in 1966. At the time, Day and Night Tire sold new tires, everything from retail to agricultural.
Matt's father, Steve Wade, eventually took over and began the slow process of refining the company's core businesses. Matt painted and repaired tires for his father in 1988 at age 15. Matt's brother, Keif, also worked in the business until Matt bought him out a couple years ago. (Keif runs his own retread shop, Infinity Treading Systems, in Charlotte, N.C.)
Steve, who says he hasn't made any decisions involving the family business for seven years, comes out of retirement when Matt needs him.
Day and Night Tire sells its medium truck tire retreads throughout Florida. "We truly cover the whole state," says Matt, who competes against three Bandag dealerships ("There used to be a dozen of them 10 years ago") and Tire Centers LLC.
"It's going to be a fun year because of the Bandag deal," he says. (Late last year, Bridgestone Americas Holding Inc. announced its intention to acquire Bandag Inc. for more than $1 billion.) "It will be interesting for the retreaders like us who want to remain low key and under the radar."
For more information on Day and Night Tire and Acutread, visit www.dayandnighttire.net.
