Brian Watts Presents Kiwanis with Continental Tire Program
Vice President, Eric Ralphs opened the club meeting on February 14th. He reminded all members to remember their sweethearts even if they say they do not want a Valentine Gift!
Keith Hoskins was the winner of the 50/50 pot, $10.
Dave Matheny contributed to the Good News Fund! He is going to be a grandfather. Clay and Valentina are going to have their first baby in August.
Brad Lee’s Good News is that today is his daughter, Ariana’s, Birthday, and his son-in-law Brian Watts is our speaker today.
Steve Winkleman reminded everyone that Pancake Day will be February 23rd at Washington School. (7:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.) The public is invited and members are reminded to turn in ticket money. There will be an Art Show.
Key club visitors were Gia Berekashvili, Alexis Switzer and Shay Smith.
Justin Dartt introduced our speaker, Brian Watts. Brian completed his Finance degree at SIU Edwardsville in 2009. He joined the Continental Tire 18 month training program soon afterwards. His training included living in Germany for six months and then Slovakia for another six months. While in Germany he got to live and travel with three other trainees about the same age. His experience in Slovakia was more comical because of the language difficulties in a smaller European town. He said that if you can imagine living in a town the size of Mount Vernon, IL and not being able to speak English, that would give you an idea of his situation in Slovakia. It was all a great education. Brian married Ariana Lee and they have a son Parker, who will be one next week!
Continental Tire acquired General Tire in 1987. The company is the 4th largest tire producer in the world. Their goal is to be one of the Big Three this year. The company has 54,000 employees worldwide working for their tire division. There are 19 production companies in 16 countries.
Brian works at the plant in Mount Vernon. That plant was constructed in 1973 and produced their first tire in 1974. They now produce 32,000 tires/year. There are 3,400 employees at that plant that live within a 65 mile radius. There are 100 acres of buildings underroof at that site with more projects planned. The Mount Vernon plant is the second largest producer of tires in the world!
Visitors and prospective members are welcome to next week’s Thursday noon meeting. Come to the Farm Bureau Building basement. Our speakers will be here to talk about CWC FFA, National FFA Week.
