Firestone Racing teammates visit Maplewood High School

Bridgestone Americas continued its award-winning collaboration with Maplewood High School recently when the Firestone Racing motorsports team stopped by the school to talk about their roles within the company.

Since 2015, Bridgestone has supported Maplewood's Automotive Training Center, which includes an onsite simulation of store operations for a Firestone Complete Auto Care (FCAC) store.

On November 1, Chief Engineer of Bridgestone Americas Motorsports and Race Tire Development Manager Cara Adams, Director of Motorsports Lisa Boggs and Manager of Motorsports Rodreich Von Stotsenburg visited Maplewood to share their experiences and stories from working in the INDYCAR racing series and talk about their roles at Bridgestone.

With a shortage of automotive technicians nationwide, Cara, Lisa and Rodreich demonstrated the Bridgestone commitment to people in the communities we serve by engaging with students and encouraging them to pursue automotive professions or careers in STEM-related fields.

The team brought along a Firestone race tire to show the students the differences between a racing slick for Indy cars and passenger tires that go on everyday vehicles and talked to the class about some of their memories and lessons from working in racing.

While Metro Nashville Public Schools were not in session on November 1, more than 20 students came into school on their day off to hear the Motorsports teammates speak.

The visit caught the eye of the local Nashville media, and the Firestone Racing team was featured in segments on both the local CBS and NBC affiliates.

“I am proud to work at Bridgestone and I love what I do,” Cara said. “Today was a day that I was very proud to represent Bridgestone as I got to see first-hand an example of the good the company does in the community.”

Since the beginning of the partnership in 2015, Bridgestone has hired 15 Maplewood graduates as store teammates and 12 as interns at FCAC locations in the Nashville region.