General Tire's Widening Tread

Akron's major rubber companies have diversified so widely that none now derive more than 60% of their sales from tires. General Tire & Rubber Co., the smallest of Akron's Big Five in tire sales, is the most versatile of them all. It makes products as varied as missile motors, water skis and oxygen masks, owns a wrought-iron company and a bottling plant, has dipped into oceanography and water desalinization, and was recently awarded a contract by the State of California to investigate new methods of crime prevention. General has moved into so many unrelated industries that, with sales of more than $1 billion, it has rolled ahead of U.S. Rubber and Goodrich, stands behind only Goodyear and Firestone. Last week, stretching into still another field, General bought for $600,000 a 48% interest in the Schenectady (N.Y.) Union-Star, an evening newspaper with a circulation of 35,000.

The Troika. General is run by three brothers, who have taken the company for its most rewarding rides on unfamiliar roads. President Michael Gerald ("Jerry") O'Neil, 43, a cool risk taker, directs the tire and other manufacturing operations in Akron, now devotes special attention to the company's missile-making arm, Aerojet-General, which has been nicked by the aerospace cutbacks. In Manhattan, Chairman Thomas O'Neil, 49, a onetime Holy Cross College football star, oversees the company's entertainment subsidiary, RKO General, and specializes in acquisitions. And John O'Neil, 47, an extraverted intellectual who once studied for the priesthood, heads the finance committee.

The three owe their fortune to some savvy progenitors. Their late father, William, founded the tire company 50 years ago with $50,000 that he had borrowed from their grandfather, a wealthy merchant. William started diversifying almost by accident; in 1940 he bought a radio station as a gift for a fourth son --now in private business in Florida--who was not interested in tires. Soon William began acquiring stations of his own. In 1955 he added Hollywood's RKO complex--which he bought from Howard Hughes for $25 million--and formed RKO General, a subsidiary that accounted for about 20% of General's 1964 profits of $37 million. Today RKO General owns seven radio and five TV stations, a community antenna television company, 123 movie theaters, Pittsburgh Outdoor Advertising, and the 400-room Equinox House in Manchester, Vt.

As a condition for the purchase of another radio station in 1944, William O'Neil paid an extra $75,000 for a struggling California rocket-propulsion laboratory. That has grown into Aerojet-General, a subsidiary that turns out Polaris, Minuteman and Titan rocket motors and a cigar-shaped, 354-ft. ocea-nographical research vessel called the SPAR, which bobs in the seas in a vertical position. Aerojet also produces more than half of General's sales and almost 40% of its earnings.

Tips on Tape. The O'Neil brothers are remarkably casual. Last week neither Jerry nor Tom could remember the name of their Schenectady newspaper. Says Jerry: "We give all the divisions a great deal of autonomy and just try to keep watch over the big picture. That's tough enough sometimes."

To help keep General's wide-angle picture in focus, the O'Neils make tape recordings of important meetings, send them to one another and to the company's divisional executives. This easygoing approach has resulted in surprisingly few errors. The most notable one was General's two-year attempt at moviemaking before it sold off the RKO studios in the mid-'50s. "The only thing you could say about our pictures," sighs Tom O'Neil, "was that no one ever got a disease from them."

Few industries are safe from the General Tire tread. When an RKO General deal to acquire a Philadelphia TV station fell through last year, Tom O'Neil was left holding some ready cash. He elevated his sights and bought 55.5% of Denver-based Frontier Airlines.

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