Andrew Firestone, star of the third go-round of ABC’s “The Bachelor,” was in Des Moines yesterday serving as a “goodwill ambassador” for his family’s line of tires. Twenty-nine-year-old Andrew Firestone toured the Des Moines plant where Firestone agricultural tires are made, visited with patients at a children’s hospital in Des Moines then stopped at Firestone’s State Fair booth to sign autographs. “I’ve just been trying to reconnect a little bit with my family’s heritage,” he says. Firestone’s great-grandfather founded Firestone Tire back in 1900. Firestone’s no longer with Jenn Schefft, the woman he proposed to at the conclusion of his “Bachelor” experience. Schefft is set to star in a “Bachelorette” series this fall. Firestone says his show, which happened a year and a half ago, “was a lot of fun, a great experience, no regrets, but you know life goes on.” Firestone says the media attention hasn’t changed his life that much. “You take it with a grain of salt. I think it’s all part and parcel with the experience,” he says. “With 20 million people watching you every week, certainly there’s going to be some level of recognition. But I’m the same person I was before. I don’t wear sunglasses inside. I don’t act any different. I don’t think that my head’s swollen or anything like that….It was a lot of fun and there were some great people and I’m grateful for it.” Firestone’s real-life job is at the Firestone winery in California, where he works in sales and marketing. Firestone says he grew up driving tractors, and he says people forget that the hard part of making wine is growing the grapes. Firestone’s grandfather designed the first agricultural tire, and Firestone says his father followed in that agricultural tradition by founding the family’s winery. Firestone says there’s a misconception that wine-making is an “elitist art.” He says making wine “is agriculture. It is growing. It’s farming.”
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