Our People

RICHARD KUSKIN, President

Richard was born 1948, graduated from Stevens Institute of Technology 1972 B.Eng.. He was employed by Seoul Trading Corp. 1972-1974, Schwartz & Nagle 1974-1989, Foreign Tire Sales 1978-present. Mr. Kuskin’s grandfather founded Schwartz & Nagle, a retail tire seller, in 1914. Both he and Richard’s father worked at Schwartz & Nagle their entire working lives. Richard started working in the family business when his father became ill and was hospitalized for an extended period in 1974.

Presented with greater potential, Kuskin devoted more of his time to importing tires, first from Korea, then from Thailand and China. Richard has traveled to China and Thailand on numerous occasions and continues to visit the factories several times a year.

LAWRENCE N. LAVIGNE, Vice President Operations, General Counsel

Larry joins FTS following 27 years as a successful trial lawyer where he devoted his practice primarily to products liability defense. Larry has represented a number of major tire, automobile and truck manufacturers. He also has vast experience in commercial transactions, employment litigation, general labor matters, lemon law defense, insurance coverage and commercial litigation. He is certified as a civil trial attorney by the New Jersey Supreme Court. He has assisted clients in preparing warnings, warranties and owner’s manuals for various products. He will continue to utilize this experience for the benefit of FTS and its customers. He will also be involved in sales and product procurement. Larry travels to the orient several times a year to meet with representatives of the various factories.

Larry is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College-B.A 1979 and Seton Hall University School of Law-J.D. 1982.

GARY EIBER, Vice President, Engineering

Gary has been a tire engineer for 40 years. After receiving his B.S. degree from the US Military Academy at West Point and his MBA from Kent State University. Gary worked for Continental General Tire International starting as a tire engineer trainee and working his way up to Manager, International Product Technology where among other obligations, he was responsible for the global bias truck tire development. He as worked on projects concerning every aspect of tire engineering on products ranging from scooter tires to giant tires. He has worked on tire projects around the world. He has vast design and testing experience which he utilizes in working with the factories FTS buys its tires from. Gary assists the factories on design criteria, performance criteria, construction detail, equipment requirements and testing requirements to insure that FTS imports only safe, high quality tires.

Even while employed at FTS, Gary was called upon General Motors to assist it in auditing Chinese tire factories. Likewise, he was retained by Tornel Tire (one of the largest Mexican owned tire companies) to assist in radial passenger car and light truck radial tire quality improvement.

Gary travels to the orient several times a year to inspect the factories, to work with their technical staffs and to insure that proper production and testing methods are used.

MAUREEN GARDNER, Manager

Maureen has been the manager at FTS since 1992. She supervises in-house staff and negotiates freight and brokerage arrangements. She is in charge of supervising customer service efforts as well as coordinating all transaction documentation. She is also responsible for corresponding with vendors, the sales force, and customers. She has ten years of industrial experience as a Chemist in various companies. She holds a MBA in Marketing from New York University 1992.

STEVEN SACKS, Sales Manager

Steve holds an MBA in Marketing from Farleigh Dickinson Univeristy. He has been in sales his entire career; 41 years in the tire industry. He ran the second Michelin dealership in United States for the widow of the founder of the company. The company was eventually sold to Michelin. He was a partner in a full service company that sold commercial tires. During the 1990’s, Steve was the CEO of Alliance Tire, USA which sold agriculture and earth mover tires in US, Canada and Mexico.

Steve has been sales manager of FTS for the past 9 years. He brings vast experience on “both sides of the desk”.

JOHN DELOGE, Sales

John has over 40 years of tire sales experience. He started his career working for Armstrong Tire where he eventually rose to the position of East Coast Regional Manager. After almost 20 years at Armstrong he moved to Dunlop Tire for the next 19 years where he ended up as the National Sales Manager. John has made a career of servicing the tire Industry through the Independent Tire Dealer. He is veteran of Vietnam War.

GLADYS VIERA Export Mananger Latin America Division

Gladys brings more than twenty-seven years in the field of sales and marketing of tires. She began with International Tire Marketers, Inc. in Myrtle Beach,SC where she opened the Latin American market to this company where being bilingual was a very essential component in this achievement.

Gladys has been instrumental in expanding the Latin American market. Currently, she works with customers South America, Central America , Mexico, Costa Rica and Puerto Rico.

Gladys holds a Business Degree from University of Puerto Rico.

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