NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Nov. 19, 2001) –Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. said it is reorganizing its Consumer Tire Division in order to provide specific focus for both retail and wholesale customers.
Effective Dec. 1, that organization will be divided geographically into two retail regions—north and south—headquartered in Chicago and Dallas. The division's present consumer region sales offices in Los Angeles and Philadelphia will be closed. Meanwhile, a third wholesale region will be formed and headquartered in Nashville along with the two existing wholesale regions currently headquartered there, BFS said.
The company also announced several appointments related to those changes, including:
*Bill Pransky, currently Midwest region manager, to manager of the newly created northern retail region manager, headquartered in Chicago;
*Steve Rammer, currently associate brand manager, to manager of the new southern region, located in Dallas. Messrs. Pransky and Rammer will be responsible for sales to all direct retail dealers in their respective regions;
*Carl Douglass, currently manager of the southern region, to manager of the newly formed wholesale region, located in Nashville. He will join the division's current wholesale region managers, John Baratta and Rudy Beech, in Nashville.
BFS Consumer Tire Division Vice President John Gamauf said the new structure will allow the organization to better serve “the unique needs of retail and wholesale dealers and allows us to continue to build strong business relationships with all of our dealers.”
In a related move, Tim Dunn, currently northeast region manager, was name national operations manager, responsible for the implementation and management of national sales and marketing programs.