Hector Moreno and his Coker Tire colleagues are looking to the stars as they follow the 13-day Discovery space shuttle mission: Moreno’s cousin, astronaut Jose Moreno Hernandez, is zipping along at more than 17,000 mph in a geosynchronous orbit 220 miles above the Earth.
“It’s not just anybody who gets the opportunity to travel into outer space,” says Moreno, a customer service representative at Coker’s Fresno, Calif., location. “It’s a pretty neat deal.”
Although a generation apart in age, Moreno is 26 while Hernandez is 49, “we both used to work in the fields out here in the Central Valley. It’s the same story – different time periods,” Moreno explains.
“All of us in the Coker Tire family are proud of Hector Moreno’s cousin and our connection with him as he goes into space,” notes Corky Coker, president of the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based wholesale/retail operation specializing in providing authentic new tires for collectors of vintage vehicles.
“What an incredible opportunity that excites us all,” Coker continues.
The latest NASA shuttle launch has attracted renewed public attention following a spectacular nighttime liftoff, the presence of the much-ballyhooed “Stephen Colbert treadmill” aboard the craft plus three astronaut spacewalks for re-configuring and re-supplying the International Space Station.
“My uncle and my aunt saw the launch live,” Moreno reports, “and they’re still there (in Florida) on a little vacation.”
In addition to his out-of-this-world space duties, Hernandez is Twittering about his grand adventure at twitter.com/astro_jose. He is the first astronaut to present bilingual Twitters.
“No word as to the rumor of Coker Classic Nostalgia Radials being installed, as of course the mission is strictly hush-hush,” Moreno jokes.
Moreno and Hernandez are both eager to emphasize the opportunities available for all Latinos who motivate themselves to achieve seemingly impossible goals. “It’s an inspirational story for anyone,” Moreno points out.
“If they think that, because they are in a financial situation, college is not in the works, that is not true,” Hernandez told ABC News. “Where there is a will, there is a way. And I will trade my story with theirs and hopefully they will say, ‘Well, Jose did it, and I can do it.’”
The cousins come from humble roots; as children they joined other family members in picking tomatoes and cucumbers under the hot California sun. Moreno’s aunt and uncle, who dropped out of school after the third grade to work in the fields, always pushed their son to study hard and pursue his education – which he did with gusto.
After obtaining bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, Hernandez went on to become an engineer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In 2004 he reached new heights upon being selected as an elite NASA astronaut after applying for the position numerous times.
“Anything is possible if you reach for the stars,” according to Coker, who has achieved considerable success by exploring the market niche of supplying collectors and restorers of old cars, trucks and motorcycles with new tires manufactured to the exact specifications of a vehicle’s original rubber. The company often buys the mold when a tire maker discontinues a line.
His father Harold founded the company in 1958 as a B.F. Goodrich dealership. The specialized vintage tires initially amounted to 5 percent of the business; that segment has since grown to 95 percent of Coker’s sales.
In addition to the West Coast sales outlet in Fresno, the Chattanooga headquarters covers some 95,000 square feet in six buildings.
Vice President of Marketing David Leach recounts that Corky Coker, following the vision of his father, “literally searched the world for old tire molds. He traveled to South America, the Philippines and Australia to acquire molds from old factories. He was able to reproduce molds from drawings when the originals were long since lost.”
In 1997 the Automotive Restoration Market Organization (ARMO) division of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) named Coker Tire its Manufacturer of the Year. Corky Coker was inducted into the ARMO Hall of Fame in 1998 and assumed the SEMA chairmanship in 2003, making him the first chairman to come from the Restoration/Street Rod segment of the automotive aftermarket.
For more information, visit www.coker.com and www.nasa.gov.
