AN INDUSTRIAL LEADER

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21470, 11 May 1935, Page 7

AN INDUSTRIAL LEADER

$ VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND EXTENSIVE WORLD TOUR A man who has immediately supervised the making of more automobile tyres than anyone else in the world and is known as the "Tyre Master," will visit New Zealand in a few days' time. He is Mr P. W. Litchfield, president of the Goodyear Tyre and Rubber Company, and one of America's leading industrialists. He will arrive at Auckland on May 13, on his way to Buitenzorg, Java, for the formal opening of the company's new factory there. Mr Litchfield's trip is interesting in that during the course of it he will have visited six of the major production units of the company—its cotton , plantation in Arizona, its rubber plantations in Sumatra, its tyre factories at Los Angeles: Sydney, Australia, Wolverhampton, England; and the new Javanese plant. He will miss only the Argentinian. Canadian, and one American plant on his trip. During this trip round the world Mr Litchfield will celebrate his thirtyfifth year with the company, having started as superintendent at the home plant at Akron, Ohio, in 190 D, shortly after his graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. He will be on the Indian Ocean between Bombay and Akron onthe anniversary day. He had charge of production during the entire period up to 1926, when he was elected president and chairman of the board. Many of the outstanding improvements in tyres, which have greatly increased their mileage and decreased their cost, had their inception in the experimental and development departments which he started shortly after joining the company. It was under energetic direction that the company rose from small beginnings to be the major American Tyre Company within 16 years, a position it has maintained ever since. j Interest in Public Affairs Long interested in public affairs, Mr Litchfield has written and spoken extensively in the United States, is serving a second term as a director of the United States Chamber of Commerce and has served on many industrial and governmental committees. He is widely known for his'liberal views on the subject of labour and has maintained for many years an unusual programme |of industrial relations at the home plant at Akron, Ohio. These include education, in the 2,500,000 dollars Goodyear Industrial University, athletics, and recreation, employee representation, a pension plan, and a factory newspaper in each plant. The wages paid in the industry rank among the highest in the United States, i Another unusual interest of Mr Litchfield's is zeppelin transportation. He has projected a trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic airship service to bring the three continents closer together, | stimulate commerce and the exchange iof commodities. He negotiated the zeppelin rights for America in 1926, built the largest dock or hangar in the world at Akron airport, developed an airship building organisation there, and maintains a fleet of six non-rigid airships in several parts of the United States. A scheduled Pacific crossing could be made in six days, it is estimated, making a substantial saving in steamship time. The projected trans-Atlan-tic route would be developed jointly with Dr. Hugo Eckener, famous skipper of the Graf Zeppelin, with the American and German companies exchanging traffic and terminal facilities. The company has been in the lighter-than-air division of aeronautics since 1910, has built more than 1000 observation and training balloons, and more than 100 airships of various types. Many Visits Paid Mr Litchfield is particularly interested also in visiting the 90,000 acre rubber plantations of the company in Sumatra, of which two units, totalling 60,000 acres, are eompletley cleared and planted, producing a large amount of rubber for the Goodyear factories Its requirements, however, as the leading company in the industry are so huge that considerably more rabbet ie bought outside than the company is raising. It is estimated that the company consumes about one-eighth of al] the rubber grown, in the. world-. - , This is Mr Litchfield's first visit tc n 3.e East although he lias pioneeroc

improved planting and yield method* in rubber culture since starting operations in 1916. The company also ha* a 2500-acre experimental tract in the Philippines. The decision to build its own factory in Java, its first manufacturing enterprise in the Middle East, was arrived at a year ago, in order to give better service to the car owners in Netherland India. The Buitenzorg site for the construction of a plant large enough to produce 300 tyres and 300 tubes a day, once decided upon, was pushed with fiispatch, the factory being completed well ahead of the estimate. The formal opening, however, was postponed until Mr Litchfield could rejuefa Java. ,-'i'