While the rest of the world is talking about ways to recover from a universal economic recession, how would an Orangeville company go about literally trebling its business in the short space of three years?

Frank Brundle, who has accomplished such a feat with Tire Discounter since 2007, would give you several answers – but giving himself all the credit for the growth is not among them.

Instead, in what seems a close paraphrase of John D. Rockefeller some years ago, Frank prefers to talk about the value of having key employees with organizational and performance skills.

He describes his general manager, Wayne Sanford, and his warehouse manager, Glenn Watts, as his right and left hands in the operation – along with Business Development Manager Richard Bender. And he gives a lot of credit to the rest of the staff.

Tire Discounter began as something of an offshoot, perhaps as the wholesale wing, of Fred’s Tire, an Orangeville tire and service centre Fred Brundle established at the corner of Townline and John Street in 1966.

The growth of that relatively small outlet to the present imposing complex at First Street and Starrview Crescent is, of itself, another success story. Tire Discounter was established in Brampton as a cash and carry retail outlet in 1978, but was converted to a retail installer a couple of years later.

In about 1990, says Frank, the wholesale operation was out of an 8,000- square-foot building in Barrie. That location still services the more northerly customers.

The 30,000-square-foot structure at the Fred’s Tire location was the Orangeville beginning in 2007. At the time, it had annual sales of about $8 million.

Within a year, it had outgrown the space. Now, three years later, it occupies an 85,000-square-foot former factory at 95 John St., has projected sales of $23-million for 2010, and is still growing upwards of servicing regularly 360 retail outlets throughout almost all of Ontario.

Fred’s Tire is among the 360 customers, as are about 20 that bear the Tire Discounter flag as part of the Tire Discounter Group from southern Ontario north through Burk’s Falls, Parry Sound and North Bay, among others.

The “flagged” outlets are considered “affiliates.” They are independent retail/service centres but don’t pay franchise or other fees for the use of the name but do receive

little perks” such as some advertising, said Frank in an interview.

On a tour of the warehouse Tuesday, we stood by as an ocean shipping container was unloaded at one of five intake doors to add to about 230,000 tires in the new warehouse. Meantime, a second tractor trailer unit had pulled up on John Street.

The container we viewed had come to Vancouver from China, and then by rail to a multimode centre in the Toronto area, thence by truck. Frank said there are about five such 53-footers weekly.

Frank says that as a direct importer from Europe, the U.S., China and elsewhere, although

60% is from the U.S. and Canada,” and because of its size, Tire Discounter can enable its customers to compete in price with any of the “big box” outlets. As well, it has given the company exclusive rights to distribute such as the Infinity Tyre brand in Ontario.

Infinity, he said, is “a great tire at a great price.”

His aim of continuing growth is to ensure he has the purchasing power to continue to do so. “The bigger I get, the better I can support (the customers).”

The ability to provide quick service is also important to Frank, who invested into a sophisticated program for online ordering. The online site lists the total inventory. Complementing it, there is a call centre that has room to expand to six operators.

There is no time wasted getting the orders out. Any of five cube vans, three 5- ton trucks, a cargo van, one 30-foot and one 50- foot pup trailers and seven pickup trucks at one or all of three shipping bays at any given time. Even distant North Bay is served two or three times a week, he said.

For the future, Frank says he plans to have as many as 50 “branded” stores in every major city in Ontario.

On the kinds of tires being sold in Ontario, Frank said about half are winter tires. In Quebec, he said, the winter tire percentage is more like 80. Tire technology is changing, he said, and now it would be acceptable to use winter tires year-round if driving, for example, 15,000 km or less a year.