Longtime Toledo tire company still rolling along after 98 years
In the world of business, a two- or three-year relationship can be considered a long time. And then there’s Toledo-based Capital Tire Group.
The 98-year-old company, one of the Midwest’s largest independent commercial and wholesale tire distributors, has been best buddies with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. since President Harry Truman was in office.
“We’ve been with them for 70 years now. Heck, most marriages don’t last that long,” said Tom Geiger Jr., Capital Tire’s president and chief operating officer.
Not long ago, Goodyear chairman and CEO Richard Kramer invited Geiger and his father, Tom Geiger, the chairman and CEO of Capital Tire, to Akron to honor the Toledo firm with an award for being a loyal Goodyear dealer for seven decades.
“There’s just a handful of dealers in America that are 70 years or older and still with them,” the younger Geiger said.
Some companies continually try to reinvent themselves or change directions every few years. But like the round products that it sells to retailers in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana, Capital Tire just rolls along and sticks with what works. If it didn’t, it might not have lasted so long.
When it was started in 1919 by Geiger Jr.’s grandfather, Ben Geiger, tires mostly were for trucks. Cars for the average person weren’t sold in abundance yet.
“When my grandfather started ... it was all installation and a lot of tire repair,” Geiger Jr. said.
Capital Tire, which has 250 employees and has been based at the same 1001 Cherry St. location since it moved there in 1923, got along for 28 years selling a variety of tire brands until Goodyear came calling in 1947.
“Obviously the business has changed a tremendous amount since then,” Geiger Jr. said.
With all the brands Capital Tire carries it now sells about a million tires a year for the auto and truck replacement tire market, and for commercial and construction vehicles. Most of the tires it sells could be considered specialized compared to tires of 70 years ago.
“The chemistry and the physics behind tires have changed a lot. Tires chemically are mostly made of polymers now,” Geiger Jr. said.
“One thing that has not changed is they are round and they are black. But what has been affected is the complexity of the offering,” he said. “Motor car companies have created tremendous variety of sizes. There’s a size for almost everything.”
When it signed with Goodyear, Capital Tire might have carried a few hundreds types and sizes of tires. Now it carries 3,500 types and sizes.
Capital Tire used to have 20 retail stores under the name Tom’s Tires, but it sold them off gradually before getting out of the business altogether a few years ago when it realized that retail and distribution had become much more complex.
“We recognized how complex the distribution business was and realized how much money it took to do retail. We needed to be able to do it the right way so we made the decision to focus on distribution,” Geiger Jr. said. “You sort of stop and ask yourself, ‘What would my grandfather say if he had a chance to see the operation now,’ I think he would be very proud.”