Tuesday, February 19, 2008



The 3rd Corporate Partner firm announced for the 2008 Summer Business Institute at Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management is Bridgestone. We're delighted to have this outstanding company a part of Accelerator 2008.

The Bridgestone team has provided an opportunity for participants to get an understanding of the "green" side of their business. Accelerator teams will study the work Bridgestone is doing to protect and improve the environment and will compete to create concepts and activities that will encourage young people from all over the US more engaged in this important initiative.

About Bridgestone:

Bridgestone Americas’ corporate family (BSA) traces its roots to the establishment of The Firestone Tire & Rubber Company in August 1900. It was then that 31-year-old Harvey S. Firestone (1868-1938) started tire production with 12 employees in Akron, Ohio.
On the other side of the globe in 1931, Shojiro Ishibashi (1885-1976) created Bridgestone Tire Company Ltd. (later renamed Bridgestone Corporation). He fashioned the company name by reversing the English translation of his own: “Ishibashi,” which literally means “stone bridge” in Japanese.
Bridgestone Corporation purchased Firestone in 1988 for $2.6 billion, transforming the companies’ combined operations into the world’s largest tire and rubber company. The operations in the Americas were renamed Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. (BFS) and became the largest subsidiary of Bridgestone. As part of its integration with Bridgestone’s existing U.S. operations, Bridgestone Firestone moved its headquarters from Akron to Nashville in 1992.