Business Services Industry

Made-in-U.S. CEO turns wheel maker around; Long, rough road leads to profit; chief ignored advice to outsource.(News)

Crain's Chicago Business, January, 2005 by Tita, Bob

Byline: BOB TITA Maurice Taylor Jr. quickly flamed out as a 1996 presidential candidate, but he's showing unusual grit in running Titan International Inc., a Downstate Quincy-based manufacturer that in other hands could easily have disappeared. Mr. Taylor, 60, has maneuvered Titan into a 90% marketshare in making large wheels-above 32 inches in diameter-for farm tractors, construction equipment and off-road vehicles.

Elbowing aside domestic competition and holding off imports, Titan swung to a profit last year, sending its stock up fourfold to $15.10 by yearend before edging back to $15.03 last week. Titan's prospects seemed dicey since the mid-1990s. A brutal labor strike begun in 1998 lasted more than three years. The market for off-road equipment was...

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works. HighBeam Research

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement

Most Recent Business Articles

Most Recent Business Publications

Most Popular Business Articles

Most Popular Business Publications