---

T&WA Wins Top Minority Supplier Golden Wheel Awards

8 January 1998

T&WA Wins Top Minority Supplier Golden Wheel Awards

    DETROIT, Jan. 8 -- Tire and Wheel Assembly, Inc. (T&WA), a
Louisville, Kentucky-based company, received the African Americans On Wheels
"Supplier of the Year" award for its achievements in the automotive industry
by a minority-owned company.
    The honor was presented at a gala reception at the magazine's Second
Annual Golden Wheel Awards ceremony, at the Museum of African American
History, which precedes the opening of the North American International Auto
Show.  The award is one of four selected by a panel of automotive journalists
from across the country.
    T&WA was launched in 1995 when the company received a contract as a
Tier One supplier for Mercedes-Benz new M-Class in Alabama.  The company
received its second tire and wheel assembly contract in September 1996 from
Toyota Motor Corporation.
    T&WA recently acquired an operating tire and wheel assembly plant in Avon,
OH.  The plant, Assembly Partners, Inc., was owned by Bridgestone/Firestone
and provides tire and wheel assemblies to Ford Motor Company.
    "We are pleased to honor T&WA with our Supplier of the Year award," said
Randi Payton, publisher and editor-in-chief of African Americans On Wheels.
"They have done an outstanding job, not only in building a Tier One company,
but in distinguishing themselves through superior quality, dependability and
price."
    African Americans On Wheels magazine is a quarterly, 40-page supplement to
33 black newspapers and zoned editions of three daily publications:  The
Detroit News and Detroit Free Press and The Washington Post.

SOURCE  African Americans On Wheels