Bridgestone has opened a Bandag Training Center on its Akron, Ohio, campus, a $3 million facility intended to educate commercial tire dealer and fleet personnel about the performance, sustainability and financial benefits of retreaded tires.
The center is designed to host hundreds of industry professionals each year through seminars and tailored classes of different sizes. It occupies nearly 15,000 square feet inside the company’s tire test lab, next to the Bridgestone Americas Advanced Tire Production Center.
A full retread training environment
The Akron site contains a complete retread facility, including production-scale manufacturing equipment and stations for each of the ten retreading steps. A classroom and the Bandag history walk are also part of the center, giving visitors both process training and background on the retread brand.
Brian Douglas, vice president of Retread North America at Bridgestone, said Bandag retreads have been a staple commercial tire solution for more than half a century. He said the second training center is intended to strengthen the company’s support for dealers and fleets and to match the value they receive from retreads in use.
The Akron facility is the second designated Bandag Training Center in Bridgestone’s network. It joins the established Bandag Learning Center in Muscatine, Iowa. Bridgestone said the two locations are meant to expand access to training and technical resources and help the company meet growing demand from fleets and dealers.
Bridgestone said retread training is highly valued by customers, both fleets and dealers, and the dual locations are expected to serve as cornerstone assets for employees and customers. The company said the sites are intended to advance education, innovation and industry expertise across the tire retreading segment.
Training site with an innovation role
When the Akron center is not hosting classes, Bridgestone plans to use it as an additional site for tire-retreading innovation. With support from teams in Muscatine, Akron and Nashville, the company intends to test new products and introduce new manufacturing equipment and processes to further advance the segment.
Bandag has provided tire-retreading solutions since 1957. Bridgestone said the business operates three pre-cured tread rubber manufacturing facilities, a retread equipment manufacturing facility and a mold manufacturing plant in the United States to support North America. According to the company, Bandag has diverted more than 300 million tires from landfills over its 65-year history by extending their service lives through retreading.
The center’s location within the tire test lab and beside the Advanced Tire Production Center places training near testing and production operations on the Akron campus.