Bridgestone/Firestone Inc lawyers tried to portray Alan Hogan as a disgruntled ex-employee. An anonymous fax accused the former tire builder of spreading "vicious, malicious allegations" about the company. Employees were warned not to do business with car dealerships that dealt with Hogan's body shop.
So forgive Hogan a degree of smug satisfaction this week as Bridgestone/Firestone's reputation, and stock price, crumbled.
The company's 95-year business relationship with Ford Motor Co -- its biggest customer -- ended Monday. Ford announced Tuesday the recall of 13 million Bridgestone/Firestone tires, twice as many as the tire manufacturer recalled last summer.
PHOTO: AP
It was Hogan, with his insider's knowledge of shoddy tire-building practices, who was widely credited with bringing about the first recall. This week's news further burnishes Hogan's whistle-blowing credentials.
"I'm surprised it took this long," Hogan said. "At least Ford is doing and saying the right things. Firestone is still not admitting anything's wrong ... Maybe now people will see this is the way it's been since 1994, 1995, when they started covering this up."
The federal government links Bridgestone/Firestone tires to 174 deaths and more than 700 injuries.
Hogan will be honored next month by the the Civil Justice Foundation for exposing how employees at a company plant in North Carolina routinely manu-factured defective tires. The consumer advocacy group, founded by the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, has bestowed similar "community champion" awards on tobacco whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand and Erin Brockovich, who exposed hazardous-waste dangers.
"Alan Hogan is a hero. His [actions] are of the highest calling," Foundation President Theodore Schwartz said this week. "Isn't it interesting that the whole thing was started by a little David who has now pitted two Goliaths against one another? His slingshot hit them both in the head."
Ford's recall includes 15, 16 and 17-inch Wilderness AT tires used on Expeditions, Rangers, Mercury Mountaineers and some F-150 pickups. More than 80 percent, though, are found on Explorers, the nation's best-selling sport-utility vehicle.
Ford cited data that show the Wilderness tire's failure rate was three times the industry average. The company estimates it will spend US$2.1 billion replacing the tires.
"We simply do not have enough confidence in those tires in keeping our customers safe," Ford President and Chief Executive Jacques Nasser said.
Bridgestone/Firestone counters that the Explorer is prone to rollovers.
"The real issue here is the safety of the Explorer," said John Lampe, Bridgestone/Firestone president and chief executive.
"No one cares more about the safety of the people who travel on our tires than we do. Our tires are safe."
Last summer, Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires, most on Explorers.
Daniel Van Etten drove an Explorer with Bridgestone/Firestone tires built in Wilson, North Carolina in March 1997. He was returning to West Virginia University when a tire separated in Camden County, Georgia. He was thrown from the vehicle and killed. His parents filed a US$21 million wrongful-death lawsuit against Bridgestone/Firestone and Ford. In August 1999, days before trial, the case was settled.
Statesboro attorney Rowe Brogdon, who represented the Van Ettens, said Alan Hogan proved invaluable.
"It's very seldom in a product liability case that you can find such a credible employee," Brogdon said. "He's just a good man who did what he thought was right once he learned somebody had been harmed by these tires."
Hogan, an ex-biker who grows bonsai trees, was hired as a tire builder in Wilson in 1994. He testified that he witnessed the crafting of countless bad tires built with dried-out rubber and with wood bits, cigarette butts, screws and more mixed in.
One look at a picture of the Van Etten tire and Hogan knew how the tread had peeled away from the steel ply like skin from a banana.
Dateline NBC, The Washington Post and others interviewed Hogan, as did product liability attorneys in Texas and Florida. His testimony helped prompt last year's recall. It also showed that defective tires were built in North Carolina, not solely in Illinois, as Bridgestone/Firestone contended.
Hogan, who had quit the company and opened an auto body shop, was pilloried in Wilson. Company attorneys scrutinized his work and family's lives. The anonymous fax, which was traced to the plant's accounts-payable office, told workers not to do business with anyone who patronized Hogan's shop.
Hogan persevered. Today, business booms. And he counts many friends at Bridgestone/Firestone.
"In the beginning, I did all this for [the Van Ettens]," said Hogan.
"As it blew up, it turns out I just inadvertently helped a lot of other people. That's kind of humbling."
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