Conti VP to keynote Tire Society meeting

AKRON — Juan Botero, a Continental Tire the Americas vice president, and Ron Kennedy, managing director of the Center for Tire Research (CenTiRe), will be the featured speakers at this year's Tire Society annual business meeting, Sept. 12-13 in Fairlawn, Ohio.

Mr. Botero, who oversees Conti's passenger and light truck OE business in the Americas, will speak on "The Future of Mobility: How Customer Requirements will Shape Tire Technology" in his keynote lecture, scheduled for 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 12.

Mr. Kennedy's plenary lecture — "Tire Finite Element Modeling — How we got where we are and where we are headed" — is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Sept. 13.

The meeting, the group's 36th annual conference, is being held at the Akron-Fairlawn Hilton in Fairlawn, an Akron suburb. The conference is attended by engineers and scientists from the tire and vehicle industries, academia and government from around the world.

The conference features 20 technical presentations over the two days, covering topics such as: tire performance; tire/vehicle system; new light on tire technology; material technology; simulations; and experimental technologies.

Subjects range from the use of soy bean oil in tread compounds to the effect of rubber hardness and tire size on tire-pavement interaction noise.

Mr. Botero has been vice president of sales, passenger and light truck tires original equipment business in the Americas, since July 2016. In this role, he is responsible for the regional marketing and sales strategies of Conti's OE business. He oversees an international team for sales, controlling, product development, supply chain management and quality.

He joined Continental in 2007 as a tread pattern mechanics engineer at the firm's global tire R&D center in Hanover, Germany. Since then he has held management roles of increasing responsibility based in Japan, Germany, Singapore and the U.S. His areas of expertise include tire mechanics, product development, strategic procurement and key account management.

Mr. Kennedy has been managing director of CenTiRe — an industry/university consortium involving Virginia Tech, the University of Akron, and tire and tire-related companies — for the past three years. He provides administrative oversight, communication with industry members and faculty, and promotion of the center.

Prior to joining CenTiRe, he worked for 37 years in the tire industry at Bridgestone Americas, Firestone Tire & Rubber and Hankook Tire performing tire finite element methods development and software programming, simulation systems development, advanced tire design, and tire factory uniformity studies.

In addition, John Moloney, general manager, Penske Racing Team, will deliver the banquet presentation: "Racing Toward Perfection (R2P) 50+ Years of Winning at Team Penske."

To register or for more information, visit the group's website.