PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. (Oct. 7, 2010)—Harvey Brodsky, longtime managing director of the Tire Retread & Repair Information Bureau, said he was fired Oct. 5, and the TRIB board has replaced him with another fixture in retreading, Marvin Bozarth, on an interim basis.
Brodsky said the TRIB board didn't tell him why he was let go, which came in a conference call with TRIB President Mike Berra Jr. and board members Bob Majewski and Wayne Jackson. Berra declined to discuss the circumstances of Brodsky's dismissal.
“I was not pleased with their decision but I serve at the pleasure of the board, or at least I did until a few minutes ago,” Brodsky said in his Oct. 5 e-mail. “Having spent the better part of my career defending and promoting the retread industry, I am very disappointed at the board's decision, which I believe is extremely ill advised.”
Berra said Brodsky provided long service to the association, and “certainly his work is recognized around the world. We would like to try to focus on the future as opposed to what happened in the past couple days.”
Brodsky has been with TRIB since 1981, working as an advocate and defender of retreading. He said he is considering several job offers he's received.
Bozarth has worked as a consultant with the Tire Industry Association and is past executive director of one of TIA's forerunner organizations, the International Tire & Rubber Association. The ITRA originally was the American Retreaders Association, the primary trade group representing the retreading industry in the U.S. and the sponsor of the annual Louisville Retreaders Conference. The ARA was renamed in 1996.
TRIB has begun a nationwide search for a new managing director, and the association is looking for an “individual with the administrative talents and the fund raising skills necessary for the successful operation of a non-profit organization representing tire repair companies and retreaders in the commercial tire industry,” Berra said.