Steve Miller, vice president of operational excellence and consumer manufacturing for Goodyear-North America, has announced the promotion of Gordon Linkous to manufacturing director at Goodyear-Gadsden.
Linkous will succeed Mark McLenithan, who tendered his resignation effective Jan. 31.
“Gordon is a highly experienced tire manufacturing leader,” he said. “During his time at Goodyear, he has established himself as an extremely effective leader and teacher. I am confident in his ability to lead the Gadsden Plant to continuously higher levels of safety, quality and production performance.”
Linkous joined the Goodyear-Gadsden team in January 2011 as a business center manager in the Mix Center and Component Prep. He was promoted to production manager in November 2012.
Prior to coming to Goodyear, he served a total of nine years in the Navy and the Army and had 30 years of experience in the tire manufacturing industry. In 1990, he was hired as a supervisor at the Yokohama Tire facility in Salem, Va. In 1996, he switched companies and took a position as division manager at Tennessee’s Bridgestone Tire facility.
Five years later, Linkous moved to Charlotte, N.C., to work for Continental Tire as the operations manager responsible for purchasing, production control and logistics.
His next tire industry position was plant manager for Carlisle Tire in Clanton, Tenn. Two years later, Linkous took on the role as CEO for Wyko Tire Technology, a manufacturer of drums and tooling for tire manufacturing equipment. Later, he started his own Lean Manufacturing consulting firm based in Crossville, Va., before going back into the tire business with Goodyear.
“I am looking forward to continuing my career with Goodyear in this new role,” he said. “There is going to be a seamless transition in leadership because we already have a good plan and a great team in place for 2014. I’m confident that we will continue to build on Mark’s efforts from the past 15 months. We will stay on track to ensure that we continuously strengthen our competitive position in our company’s footprint.”
A native of Marion, Va., Linkous earned a bachelor’s degree in business and computer science from Bluefield State College and has his project manager certification from the Project Management Institute. He is married to Carolyn and has two children and two grandchildren.