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The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company's Lawton
plant and Great Plains Technology Center have a relationship
that goes far beyond a mere business partnership. In its 25-year
history with Great Plains, the plant has undergone seven major
expansions, bringing Goodyear's total investment in Lawton to
about $5.5 billion.
"I can say without exaggeration that Great Plains has been
an integral part of our plant's 25-year success story,"
said Lawton Goodyear Plant Manager Arty Straehla.
The plant pumps well over $150 million annually into the Southwest
Oklahoma economy. The facility holds the title as the largest
single producer of tires in the world and it is the largest private
sector company in the state west of Oklahoma City.
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"The technology center was actually Goodyear's
first 'home' in Lawton," said Straehla, who began his Goodyear career
as a tire builder at the Lawton plant in 1980.
 "The first
Goodyear people in Lawton were maintenance training coordinators
who began their work at the center with a group of trainees hired
the day before the plant's groundbreaking in June 1977. The plant
site was still a cow pasture and what was then called "vo-tech,"
was already hard at work with our company," he said.
That's why Goodyear has been recognized as a CareerTech
Business Champion.
CareerTech Business Champions are those businesses that
attribute much of their economic success to the partnerships
they have formed with the local technology center or high school CareerTech
programs.
Plant employment is about 2,300 people. During the 25 years since
ground was broken for the facility, Great Plains has conducted
training for most of the 4,900 individuals who have worked there.
The technology center's assistance has ranged from one-day Occupational
Safety and Health Administered (OSHA) mandated safety training
to a specially designed industrial maintenance-training program
that lasts several months.
 "It takes a
highly efficient organization of professionals to support training
efforts on this scale. We have come to depend on Great Plains
to fill this role. Goodyear is in the business of manufacturing
tires and Great Plains is there to support our training,"
Straehla said. "They have made it much easier for us to
achieve our high level of success as a manufacturing plant."
The plant produces radial tires for passenger cars and light
trucks primarily for the new vehicle market, and operates
24 hours a day, seven days a week with four rotating shifts.
Its products are shipped to all 50 states, Puerto Rico and 18
different countries. The facility has 1.9 million square feet
under its roof and is nearly three quarters of a mile long.
Straehla said that Goodyear initially chose Lawton, "because
the city offers a wide array of favorable conditions for both
large and small industries, including utilities, climatic and
other living conditions, educational facilities, modern medical
facilities, good roads and wholly cooperative government."
"The most important favorable factors which we have found
here, though," he said, "is an ample work force and
people with an outstanding work ethic."
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