Bridgestone Americas in Normal hosted a group of business, education and government leaders on Friday for the third annual “Makers on the Move” statewide bus tour to showcase manufacturing plants in Illinois.
Bridgestone Americas is a worldwide company that produces tires, rubber products and other products. Next year, the local plant will celebrate its 60th anniversary.
At the fourth of more than 40 stops on the tour this year, attendees gathered in front of Bridgestone Americas to hear several guest speakers before taking a tour of the facility.
The conference featured a series of guest speakers who provided insight into the tour and why Bridgestone Americas was selected for a visit.
Plant Manager Walt Pittman said the tour is an excellent opportunity to showcase Bridgestone Americas.
“The importance of that is so that way, you can understand who we are, what we do and how we do that because the IMA [Illinois Manufacturers' Association] has been a strong partner with the Bridgestone plant here in [Normal] along with other local and state resources,” Pittman said.
Pittman said Bridgestone America’s business relies heavily on its global enterprise architecture commitment, but it wouldn’t be successful without the 500 workers employed at the plant.
“How we do things is through our mission statement and that is serving society with superior quality,” Pittman said. “That starts with the 500 outstanding teammates here, and what makes the Bridgestone Bloomington plant so great is the pride that those 500 teammates take in the work that they do.”
Speaking with WGLT, Mark Denzler, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, highlighted the number of workers in manufacturing in Illinois.
“The workers are really the heart of manufacturing,” Denzler said. “Across Illinois, there’s 650,000 people that work in manufacturing — here at Bridgestone in Bloomington-Normal, there’s about 500 teammates that work and make tires."
He added there are tens of thousands of open manufacturing jobs in Illinois today.
"They could be on the production line, they could be in accounting, marketing, design or engineering [which are] great high-paying jobs today," Denzler said.
State Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, also attended the stop at Bridgestone Americas.
She said she is impressed with Bridgestone America’s sustainability in Bloomington-Normal.
“It’s really incredible for a company of this size to be here for this long, and it’s really wonderful and hopefully they’ll be here for many years to come,” Chung said.
