TRAC's Glenn Maidment caps 51-year rubber industry career

CAMBRIDGE, Ontario—Growing up in the Kitchener/Waterloo area of Ontario, Glenn Maidment pretty much had three career paths he could have chosen: meat packing, automotive or rubber manufacturing.

Given that Maidment retired Jan. 1 as president of the Tire and Rubber Association of Canada after a 51-year career in the industry, there seems no doubt he made the right choice.

"Those were three foundational industries back in those days," Maidment told Rubber & Plastics News. "Right out of school you could get a job in any one of those areas almost immediately."

Back then the Kitchener/Waterloo region was known as "The Akron of Canada," as it boasted Uniroyal and B.F. Goodrich tire factories, along with a host of other rubber manufacturing.

Maidment graduated from high school in spring 1969, took the summer off and then applied at Uniroyal. He was small, and back then you had to be a certain height to work in the plant, so he started as a clerk where commercial truck tires were produced, stuck in a small cubbyhole of an office on the fourth floor.

Back in the day, he said, large tire manufacturing firms also offered career opportunities in a host of other disciplines, such as engineering or sales and marketing. After working at the facility for two years, he transferred to the payroll department. There, he said he really began to think about where he wanted to go with the company.

"It became very clear to me, if I ever really wanted to excel, that I had to go back to school," Maidment said. That affirmation led to night courses at the local university and, after more than seven years of part-time study, he earned a degree in economics, leading to progressively more opportunities at Uniroyal.

When he returned to the plant in industrial engineering, he found himself working on time studies. While he loved the people, the work wasn't for him, he said.

Then it was back to the front of the building and a couple of years in market research.

"In the early 1980s, I got into sales," Maidment said. "I started as a territory manager, selling tires throughout the province. Over the next six or seven years, I had pretty much every territory in the province of Ontario at one time or another."

Uniroyal wanted him back in the office in the mid to late 1980s, and he headed up a new business development unit known as Royal Care. The program essentially was a concierge service for loyal, selected dealers.

"The program I helped create and develop became what Michelin adapted as their Alliance program," he said. "That was one of the things they adopted from the Uniroyal Goodrich purchase."

Career takes a turn
In August 1986, B.F. Goodrich and Uniroyal merged their tire operations, forming Uniroyal Goodrich Tire Co. When the marriage did not work out as hoped, Michelin, in September 1989, agreed to buy Uniroyal Goodrich for $1.5 billion.

Less than two years later, in spring 1991, Michelin closed the Uniroyal Goodrich head office in Kitchener. A large group of employees were offered opportunities to move to Montreal and join the Michelin team there. Those who chose not to go and for whom Michelin could not find a place at the tire plant received a severance package.

The president of Michelin Canada at the time asked Maidment if he would consider moving to Montreal.

"To be honest with you, I would have gone in a heartbeat," he said. "But to make a move such as that, you really do have to bring the family into the decision."

At the time, his kids were in high school, and his wife had a small business in town. "So I remember going home and sitting around the dining room table having supper, and told the family I had just been invited to move to Montreal," he recalled. "I said, 'Put up your hand if you would like to go.' Nobody put up their hand but me. It was no more complicated than that."

It was a stressful time.

Maidment was 41 and faced with having to leave a job he loved. But somehow, he knew it would all work out. That was in March, and with his Michelin employment running through October, he had more than six months to decide what to do.

In early July, he got a call from Brian James, then president of the Rubber Association of Canada, which TRAC was called until changing its name in 2014. Maidment didn't know James at the time, but had done some work with the RAC earlier in his career while in market research.

"Brian called me up and said in his very English accent, 'You might not know me, but I hear you might be looking for a job,' " Maidment said. "I had nothing in the fire at that point, so I said I would come down and have a chat."

He didn't know it at the time, but Maidment's boss at Michelin had recommended six or seven others for the director of operations post at RAC as well. But in the end, he was offered the job, and started the day after his employment ended with the tire maker.

"I have to tell you, the first three months were like culture shock," he said.

While working at a large company, there were a lot of folks to engage with over the course of a day, problem solving and just enjoying the sociability. But when Maidment joined the association, there was James, his secretary Helen and him.

"It was just a very different animal," he said. "And I said to myself, 'Well, I'll try this for three months. Then if it doesn't work out, I'll get a real job back in the industry.' And that was 30 years ago."

Life at the RAC
Maidment did a bit of everything with the association.

There previously was a part-tire person to handle the tire statistics function for the RAC, but that person left and gave James the opportunity to bring on a full-time staff member.

While Maidment said he thought he knew the tire industry, the language and terminology he needed to understand was different at the group. Plus, he knew nothing about health and safety, workers' compensation, or customs and tariffs.

"There were so many other issues that were foremost on the association's mind that you had to learn," he said. "It was absolutely challenging to start."

One of his first challenges was to help switch the statistical program from a paper-based system to a computer database. He also helped organize the work of the various committees. While it wasn't necessary to be an expert on all areas, he did need to know enough to be able to organize meetings for members.

Things kind of went from there, particularly when the RAC became involved in end-of-life tire management. Ontario had introduced a $5 tire tax in 1989, and it remained a hot issue the following year when the infamous Hagersville, Ontario, tire fire occurred. Over a 17-day span, more than 14 million tires burned.

"Over the next several years, virtually every province in Canada became acutely aware that they needed to have a way to manage end-of-life tires, so we're not creating these huge stockpiles," Maidment said. "We spent an inordinate amount of time working with all the players trying to come up with some system that made sense from an industry perspective to help mitigate end of life tire management. I do think of this as one of our success stories in Canada."

In Canada, every province has to specify one agency to have bottom-line responsibility for scrap tires. In other words, you "need one throat to choke," as Maidment said the old adage goes.

As provinces got their programs going, the association helped to facilitate and offer related education. The group also was an active participant in the programs for British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario.

Trade deals a major hurdle
The Canadian tire and rubber industry was a much different animal before free trade agreements started within North America. Even before NAFTA, there was the original Free Trade Agreement.

When the FTA was signed, Canada had a large number of small tire and rubber products facilities. Uniroyal, BFG, Goodyear, Seiberling, Firestone, Dunlop, General and a few others operated tire factories in the nation.

Because of the high duties assessed on goods brought into Canada from the U.S., the Canadian plants had small runs designed to serve domestic demand. But that meant having low production runs that led to high indirect costs because so much time was spent changing over tire sizes.

"As we started thinking about free trade, we knew a lot of these smaller facilities were not going to be able to survive unless they really invested in their operations," Maidment said. "If you were going to service the North American market, they had to decide what part of the market they were going to service. They needed long production runs, and needed to have the market to support that kind of approach."

The RAC worked with Industry Canada to devise a duty remission program, where tire makers received roughly $1 in support for every $3 paid in duties, if the money was used to upgrade facilities.

Uniroyal and BFG both took advantage to boost existing factories, and Maidment said Goodyear closed an old plant in Toronto and used funds from the program to help pay for a new tire plant in Napanee, Ontario. Bridgestone used the program to invest in its Joliette, Quebec, facility, while Michelin's factories in Nova Scotia also benefited.

"One of the things the association accomplished in that original free trade agreement was we negotiated with the federal government to allow for a 10-year phase-in," he said. "Duties started out at 10 percent, and every year 1 percent came off the duties. That helped to protect the domestic facilities, at least for awhile."

Many of the tire plants, however, didn't survive, along with major non-tire rubber product factories operated by Gates and Dayco.

Today, only Goodyear, Bridgestone and Michelin still operate tire plants in Canada, but Maidment said their operations are built for the long haul. "The facilities that we have today make more tires than when we had all those other facilities before free trade," he said. "We've lost employees, but over the years we've gained production, and we have world-class facilities now in Canada. I have to say that is a bit of a win."

Waiting his turn
James intended to retire from the RAC in early 1995. While Maidment was willing to take over, the board instead went outside and hired Don Campbell, who had been head of the automotive directorate at Industry Canada. James and Campbell had helped facilitate the industry's transition to free trade, and the RAC board was comfortable bringing him in.

Maidment had to decide whether to stay with the association after being passed over, or leave and start over elsewhere.

"I thought I would give Don a trial here and see how it worked out," he said. "I have to tell you, I'm obviously very happy that I did. Those five years were very good. Don is just an incredibly special individual, and just a wonderful human being."

Campbell retired after five years, and Maidment's time came in the summer of 2001. Wayne Barnes was president of Goodyear Canada then and chair of the RAC board. They had a close working relationship, and Barnes recommended Maidment's promotion to the board.

One of the things he enjoyed—in what ended up being a nearly 30-year tenure at the RAC and later-named TRAC—was the work the association did with ISO, serving as the secretariat for OTR tire standards. Working with ISO also offered regular international travel and resulting friendships in the industry and around the globe.

Over the years, the association has operated fewer committees, but still has active groups in tire stats and technology. The latter, particularly, has enjoyed an expanded role in recent years, working with such government departments as Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada. Those gatherings typically have 15-16 tire company representatives and a similar-size delegation from the government.

"Our members love the opportunity to know that they can dial up directly with us and the government," Maidment said. "They can look that person in the eye, and they know who they are. We can talk about membership issues, and you know exactly who you're talking to. That has proven to be an extremely valuable part of what the association is able to deliver to membership."

A big part of his legacy, he said, is TRAC's leadership on the end-of-life tire management, an initiative begun before he joined the association—but which became a bigger issue during his tenure. He will continue to serve on the tire boards for British Columbia, Manitoba and Ontario.

"In terms of career choices, I feel very blessed," he said. "For the last 20 years, I've always had good boards. They've been supportive of what we've been trying to do. They've always been supportive. I have no regrets."

Maidment said he is enthusiastic about Carol Hochu, his successor as TRAC president. She has managed associations and non-profit organizations for the last 30 years, most recently in the plastics industry. Maidment has known her for 25 years, both her accomplishments and personality.

"She is really the right person at the right time," he said. "The last 10 years while I've been doing work on the tire side, she has essentially been doing the same work for the plastics side."