News You Can Use

RTA NEWS YOU CAN USE
September 22, 2017

A MAN WHO WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

HARVEY BRODSKY HAS DIED

Harvey Brodsky last month, on August 16, 2017
- strong, sharp, vital, positive, optimistic and fighting till the very end.

Dear RTA Members, Friends and Industry Associates,

It is with deepest sadness that we must deliver this news.

Harvey Brodsky, our founder, great friend, and vigilant champion of the Retread and Tire industry, died on Sunday, September 17^th, of complications from lung cancer. He was diagosed in March and given two to three weeks to live. But with his strength and will, he kept fighting and was determined to overcome his illness.

Those who knew Harvey personally are well aware of his lifelong joy and positive work for others.

We lose today a champion of life itself, and of the world of business, a scholar on all topics regarding the tire, retread and rubber industries. We lose a man who did business with good spirit, on a handshake, without remorse or greed. We lose a reliable ally, who asked for nothing in return but our friendship and commitment to the same causes that would help us all thrive.

We lose a man who always looked for the best in people and himself. His energy, enthusiasm and integrity was unquestionable, and his accumulated knowledge of the industry was gleaned from the thousands of friends and associates he made during his life and career

Harvey was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and like most guys from Philly, was a friend for life once he got to know you. He made lifelong friends there and he loved them all to the end.

As a boy he loved baseball, collected statistics, cards, news clippings and could name any player or team. He took his first job in his father Max's auto upholstery business, and was a devoted son to him and his mother Gertrude, along with his sister and his brother Frank.

As a young man he went into the Army, and as he once said, he somehow lucked into a desk job in France, and never had to face combat during what was a time of great upheaval. Had he been called to more rigorous and dangerous duty, he was always ready, willing and more able than most.

Before his career in the tire business He lived in Los Angeles and, among other things, started his own company, a one-man upholstery business. He sold himself door to door, to the finest and also the simplest restaurants and bars of LA, upholstering booths that would be occupied by the movie stars of the day, at Musso and Frank, Bordner's, The Rainbow Room, Formosa Café, places of Hollywood history, and countless more.

Stories of encounters with amazing people were abundant in his life. Lunching with Ayn Rand, a long train ride with Ronald Reagan, parties at the home of Bobby Darin, a dear friend of Art Buchwald, an enounter with Pablo Picasso and scores of others. He wrote a screenplay, learned the sport of fencing, and these recollections were commonplace in his life long before I knew and worked with him for these last 35 years.

Eventually he began working with Big-O tires, was offered a top management position, but soon was hired as Managing Director for the Tire Retread Information Bureau (TRIB), which he guided and grew for more than thirty years, successfully and on his own terms.

In 2011 Harvey once again set off on his own, and created the Retread Tire Association (RTA), which he built with a solid foundation, and today continues in strength guided by values and personal integrity, of which he taught us to always be mindful.

One of Harvey's many sayings has become a guidepost for RTA – "Always be better than you need to be", he would say, and "There's never a wrong time to do the right thing, and there's never a right time to do the wrong thing." All words to live by, every day.

Harvey leaves his dear wife Rona, who he loved very much and who helped guide him in his endeavors. It is clear that one of the great blessings of his life was to work with, meet, care about, talk to, help and love the members and friends who supported him in his efforts to support them. When he departed this week, he left us with a lot of guidance, joy, positivity and strength.

To say that Harvey will be missed is an understatement, and we will miss him, but we'll never forget him.

- Jeffrey Parks

Managing Director, Retread Tire Association

• • • •

Thought for the day
The Future -
What happens from here?

I believe that the retread industry is going to continue to be healthy,
and technology is improving all over the world.
It's very cost effective to produce a retreaded tire, no matter where you are today.

I believe that the retread industry is going to be around for a very long time.
It will continue to grow and there is no evidence to counter that,
none whatsoever.

I think the industry has no evidence of doing anything but of improving.
The outlook for all of us, is that this industry,
through the efforts of dedicated people, will get better and better.

- Harvey Brodsky (on the future of the Retreading Industry)