Titan International Inc. recently teamed up with the Tire Industry Association (TIA) and East Bay Tire Co. to bring product offerings and ag tire training to East Bay Tire customers via the Titan University On The Road Training program.
Titan held training sessions at two East Bay Tire locations – one in Fresno, Calif., and the other in Fairfield, Calif., earlier this month.
They consisted of hands-on training, classroom sessions and lectures – all focused on proper ag tire service and safety.
East Bay Tire, which is based in Fairfield, has 14 tire commercial service center locations and three distribution centers that service the western United States.
The need for education
“Over 10 years ago, we started these little training programs in our plants, where we would invite dealers and their customers to come and we would train them on Titan products,” Scott Sloan, ag product manager for Titan, told MTD during the Fresno session.
From there, Titan opened the training up to even more dealers and Titan University was created, he explained.
“We saw a need to train technicians the right way. Our goal is to get your business up to the standards TIA says it should be.”
Matt White, TIA’s director off-road tire service, trains dealers and technicians during Titan University sessions. He told MTD that elevating the professionalism of technicians is one of his goals.
“Throughout history, tire technicians have been led to believe that they’re just laborers - that they’re not actually technicians or technical people,” said White.
Joe Pehanick, chief operating officer for East Bay Tire, told MTD that training is paramount, which is why the dealership partnered with Titan and TIA to hold training sessions.
“We service 2,000 independent tire dealers in the west and we have a strong passion to provide value to them,” says Pehanick.
“As a dealer ourselves and as a distributor, we see those challenges of ‘Where is the training? How do you get it to technicians?’”
Pehanick cited the example of a technician who participated in the recent Titan University Fresno class and has been in the tire industry for over 50 years. He said the class was the first formal training he ever had.
“We reached out to some of our best partners and they showed up” for the Titan University sessions.
Training details
Each Titan University session at East Bay Tire’s locations included around 10 technicians.
They were given the option of how they wanted to split their time – back in the office with Sloan, learning about the ag industry, ag tire tables and product development, or with White, learning proper safety protocols for rims, wheels, valves and service trucks.
Sloan walked tire dealers through how to find an ag tire’s load index based on the size of the tire and recommended inflation levels.
He also discussed the benefits of Titan’s Low Sidewall Technology (LSW), a hybrid tire/wheel technology featuring a large rim diameter and smaller sidewall than a standard tire.
LSW reduces a tire’s hop, soil compaction and road lope, he noted.
“Having the training at an East Bay Tire location gives us [Titan] the ability to get out in front of our customers and answer the specific questions they have,” says Sloan.
“The more we know about our customers and where they come from and what type of environment they work in gives us the ability to focus our product developments (on) things they need or if they’re having issues with something, they now have a face and a name of someone at Titan who can help them.”
White’s session started with an open discussion of what vehicles and tires the techs in the classroom worked on. He then tailored the lesson towards the markets and environments they work in.
White also shared real-life stories of on-the-job injuries due to techs not following proper safety procedures and then taught attendees the correct procedures.
“We have fatalities in this industry because people do not understand the stored energy in these tires,” says White.“People want to take short cuts, but the short cut is the wrong way to do it.”
After classroom training, White took attendees outside for hands-on tire mounting and demounting training.
Each tire dealer was given a safety vest, goggles and gloves as White demonstrated and grabbed volunteers to help mount and demount the tire.
A ‘no-brainer’
Pehanick told MTD that partnering with Titan and TIA for training is a “no brainer.”
“We are a Titan dealer, so every single one of the customers here are indirect customers of Titan,” he says.
“Getting Titan in front of them allows them to get a more technological perspective on the products and lets them see how our relationships work. It also gives them more confidence in the products they’re buying.”
White, Pehanick and Sloan said they hope to hold more training sessions in the future.
