About us

A Family History in the Tire Business

Forklift Tire Company, Inc. is built on four generations of tire experience. The family story began in the automotive tire business with Ben Rudnick in 1926, continued through Jerry Rudnick, and evolved into industrial tire specialization through Tom Rudnick.

In 1926, Ben Rudnick founded Ben Rudnick Tire Company at 2209 South Flower Street in Los Angeles. At its height, the Flower Street location included a showroom, four auto bays, specialized alignment pits, and a staff of 36 employees. Ben also served as the exclusive West Coast distributor for BFGoodrich for 36 years. That first generation established the family’s place in the tire trade — built on consistency, real work, and a name customers trusted.

Jerry Rudnick carried the business forward through the 1950s and beyond. In 1957, he opened a second location in Van Nuys, expanding into the San Fernando Valley during a period of rapid Southern California growth. Jerry preserved the standards his father built while navigating an increasingly competitive automotive and pneumatic tire market.

The major turning point came with Tom Rudnick. Tom recognized that industrial solid tires offered a more specialized path forward. Rather than chasing thinner margins in the general tire business, he built around forklift tires, industrial tire pressing, used and reconditioned resilient solids, wheels, and replacement solutions that solved real customer problems. He founded and operated Solid Tire Company and Rudnick Industrial Tire Company, developing a yard where used and reconditioned solid tires and wheels could be collected, sorted, matched, and put back to work. Tom was not just a tire seller — he was a practical recycler who could find value in inventory others overlooked.

On December 21, 2012, Troy Rudnick formally started Forklift Tire Company, Inc., and the company began doing business in 2013. For over a decade, Troy and Tom have worked side by side, combining deep forklift tire knowledge and supplier relationships with modern e-commerce, digital merchandising, and search engine strategy to reach customers across the United States.

Today, Troy, Tom, and Jason Rudnick continue that legacy together. Troy brings the online business, accounting, and over a decade of experience building the company. Jason brings hands-on industrial tire experience from years of shop work — pressing, regrooving, and solving tough fitment problems. Together, they represent two sides of the same family legacy: the technical and the digital, the shop floor and the search engine.

“In the 1920s, Great-Grandfather Ben was busy replacing solid tires with pneumatic ones for automobiles. Today, we have come full circle, replacing pneumatic tires with the superior durability of solid tires for forklifts.”
— Troy Rudnick

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