AKRON—The Tire and Rim Association, the standardizing body for the U.S. tire, rim and valve industry, has been in existence for 110 years.
For 44 of those, Joseph F. Pacuit was on the staff of the TRA; for 33 he served as its executive vice president. Pacuit retired in favor of TRA Secretary Rudy Concepcion on Dec. 31.
Except for a summer working at Goodyear in his junior year at Cleveland's Case Institute of Technology (now Case Western Reserve University), Pacuit—a native of Akron—never has worked anywhere except TRA.
"My best friend and I were talking about starting our own business straight out of college," said Pacuit, who graduated from Case with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. "For various reasons, it didn't work out."
Fortunately, the man in whom Pacuit confided his ambitions told him he could come to work for him any time he wanted. That man was Claude Dykes, TRA executive vice president in 1969.
Pacuit joined TRA as a technical assistant, worked his way up to secretary, and he became executive vice president when Dykes retired in 1980.
The Clincher Tire Manufacturers' Association, forerunner to the TRA, was founded in 1903, according to the TRA website. The TRA name was first adopted in 1917, and the organization's current incarnation began in 1933.