A Look at Bridgestone Tires
A Brief History of Bridgestone Tire
Bridgestone Tires is probably one of the oldest tire companies in the world. It has been in business since 1900 with only 12 employees in Akron, Ohio. Called Bridgestone Americas Inc or BSA, Bridgestone traces its roots to a man named Harvey S. Firestone, a 31-year old who founded the company in 1900. It was then called Firestone before it was merged with another company. 31 years after the foundation of Firestone, a man in Japan also founded his own tire company, the man, whose name was Shojiro Ishibashi, founded the Bridgestone Tire Company Ltd. The name Bridgestone was actually derived from the Japanese man’s own lat name, which was translated as stone bridge in English. He inverted it and came up with the name of the company as we know it today.
Ishibashi purchased Firestone in 1988 for 2.6 billion dollars. Bridgestone Tire is now considered the largest tire company in the world. The company’s headquarters is now located in Nashville but it used to be in Akron. Bridgestone company has about 53,000 employees in about 53 facilities in the Americas. Bridgestone does not only manufacture tires but also lead the technology in radial development and services. Bridgestone is relentless in pursuing customer satisfaction by ensuring the safety of the customers when their tires are used and by making sure that their services exceed their customers’ expectations. As an added note, they have a race track to test their new tires and see how much mileage a new tire can cover or deliver.
