As far as the market goes, what countries are being targeted for Yokohama to sell OTR tires to?
Nash: Brazil, Russia, India and China – very high demand. Infrastructure is being built now in all those big countries. There the demand is going to be great. And it’s going to take a lot of product away from the U.S. production wise. Mexico-Yokohama (YTC) just expanded into Mexico and we are looking forward to working with our neighboring country. Richards: And don’t forget Australia, which has a tremendous amount of construction going on right now. What’s the size of Yokohama’s OTR dealer network? Richards: We’re around 350 dealers now. Nash: That includes a lot of dealers who have multiple locations. Are you planning on expanding the OTR department? Nash: Our long-range plan, which goes through 2017, calls for us to increase our head count to 15. It depends on the market and supply. Also, our dealer network now includes Mexico so we will have to add manpower to support us. This is going to require lots of sales training and visits to the mine sites where we can get familiar with the
