Reed Rubber Products celebrates a century of meeting customer needs

ST. LOUIS—Reed Rubber Products has done what only a select few have done before.

It has survived and thrived, grown and adapted. And in doing so, it celebrated a milestone—100 years in business.

"It is quite an achievement to be in business this long," Reed Rubber Co-owner Clark Reed said. "Most businesses fail in the early years. Those that survive will eventually face a generational transition, and success depends, I think, mostly on the good fortune of having a next generation that is both qualified and interested."

Luckily, Reed Rubber had both. It has had a vision for growth that allowed it to adapt and survive difficult times—depressions and recessions of the greatest kind. It's also been cared for by generations of family members who have developed a passion for the business and skillfully led it forward. They are part of a tradition that started with Clark's grandfather and will continue with his son, Oliver.

"In our family, while the generational transitions have not always been especially smooth, I think the one we're facing now is going very well, so I am optimistic," Clark said. "Also, most important of all, we have some excellent employees for the next generation to continue meeting customer needs."

The company began as Reed Rubber Co. It was built by Clark's grandfather, Benjamin, who traveled through remote parts of Missouri, Illinois and Arkansas, soliciting work crews during the time when Missouri was building levees and roads. The company sold work boots, rain gear and discharge hoses in the early days. The retail store started in the late 1920s as a way to reach new customers, and the company continued accepting occasional walk-in customers into the 1990s.

"We realized it didn't make sense to drop everything in order to give our attention to someone wanting to buy $100 worth of products," Clark said, "so we stopped this practice altogether around 2000. Reed (Rubber) was never exclusively a retail store. I believe that was just an effort to find other ways to sell products.

"Ironically, we just opened our e-commerce store and are back into retail."

While the retail side of the business was an effective means to an end, Clark said the company was never primarily a retail outlet, but more of a warehouse with a walk-in business for selling to OEMs and construction crews.

"Although, I believe there was an effort at one time to offer pure retail when the family leased a storefront, that didn't last long. Reed was primarily a sales organization until around the time my father and uncle retired in the 1990s," Clark said. "In order to become more vertically integrated, we began die-cutting and (started) some fabrication of sheet rubber in the 1960s. True manufacturing started in the 1980s when the company began selling to glaziers (and) to construction companies. I think that today, with a renewed focus on sales and marketing, we may be becoming more of a sales organization once again."

With the start of the mobilization of World War II, the company shifted to selling molded and extruded industrial products. The company's mainstay products included grommets and O-rings. It also sold hydraulic hose assemblies for pressure cleaners and car washes. RRC also developed a small business of die-cutting and fabricating sponges and rubber parts for general industries.

The building boom of the 1980s opened a new market for RRC to resell glazing components such as window seals. The company eventually would manufacture those products. By 1985, Reed Rubber began extruding thermoplastic vulcanizates under the name of Reed Rubber Products.

The next transition for the company came when Reed Rubber Co. was split off in 2008, merged with another firm and renamed to Zone Reed Industries. Both RRC and Zone Manufacturing specialized in die-cutting and fabrication, while RRP focused on extrusions.

Zone Reed closed its doors in late 2011.

As part of the split—and to make room for Zone Reed—Reed Rubber Products moved out of the facility on 25th Street to Union Seventy in St. Louis, where it is today, operating a 43,000-sq.-ft. plant. The company's portfolio of products has roots tracing back to the mid-1980s, when Reed Rubber Products was incorporated to handle glazing extrusions.

Reed Rubber has always been focused on working closely with the customer. The company specializes in only a few markets, so it can bring expertise to customers in a way that generalists cannot. Reed Rubber joins the same trade associations as its customers, and it studies the technical standards that they certify so it can better understand customers' challenges.

"We work hard to innovate because, as Jack Welch once said, 'If the rate of change on the outside is greater than the rate of change on the inside, the end is in sight,' " Clark said.

The company that exists today bears little resemblance to the one from a generation ago. And that's OK, Reed said. Because the company is a culmination of its history and the lessons learned along the way.

Clark said he has been most impressed that his grandfather managed to survive the Great Depression. When his father asked how he managed it, his grandfather reportedly said, "I paid my bills and collected my money."

And while that may not have been a transition that Clark himself could see, he was there when the company worked through a different kind of change.

"I was around in the early 1980s when I watched the company make the transition into a genuine manufacturer, bringing with it such issues as quality control, work processes, equipment maintenance and productivity, not to mention lots of human resources issues," Clark said. "That the company managed this transition is greatly to my predecessors' credit."

Clark, at the helm of the company, eventually would draw on the wisdom of those who led before him, particularly as he faced financial challenges that came with the Great Recession.

"For me, I am grateful that we survived the Great Recession, which hit just at the time we struck out on our own, after splitting from Reed Rubber Co," Clark said. "I am also very pleased with the current mission of helping our customers, employees and community to succeed, and minimizing our impact on the environment. I hope that will be my legacy."

Clark is proud to be a fourth-generation owner and to follow the traditions set forth by the early generations. It is important for him to carry on traditions and values such as service and quality and treating employees fairly.

"I have a metal stamped paper clip that my grandfather had made and has his signature engraved on it and it says that: 'Service and quality are vital factors in buying boots and slickers,' " Clark said. "Carrying on the traditions of service and quality is something every company must do. Carrying on our value of viewing our employees as more than a factor of production also continues to be important."

Those traditions and values that helped to shape his time at the helm of the company will become critical in the months ahead, when he passes them on to his son, Oliver, who will continue to work with Reed Rubber representing the fifth-generation to serve within the company ranks.

Yes, Clark is planning his retirement later this year.

He remembers that his father never pushed him to go into the business, but instead urged him to study what interested him. Clark went on to major in geology, and he soon realized that what he most enjoyed was working with people. After a few years in geology, he joined the family company.

It's a position he found truly fulfilling. And while it may be time to close a chapter on his career, he isn't leaving Reed Rubber behind. Not entirely.

"I don't have a specific date for retirement, but it will be sometime in December this year," Clark said. "I will remain on the board of directors, so I won't be gone altogether. After I leave, the company will continue to be run by our president, Bob Barciszewski, whom we hired four years ago for just this purpose. Oliver will continue in his various roles in marketing, employee engagement and IT. Oliver's wife, Alex, is also in the business, in sales.

"In our industry, there has been a big move toward energy efficiency, which has helped us. More generally, for a company that started before telephones were commonplace, to a day in which everything is instantaneous, there has been such an enormous change over the past century."

One thing that hasn't changed for Reed Rubber is its passion for and focus on people—customers and employees alike.

"Corporations are made up of people, and you can't ask people to dedicate themselves to something they don't believe in," Clark said. "Having a higher purpose is important. For us, that means helping our customers succeed."

Reed mentioned that the company was recently featured in the "St. Louis Business Journal" survey where 63 percent of RRP employees felt they were highly engaged; 30 percent said they were moderately engaged; and 7 percent said they were barely engaged in their work at RRP.

"What has been most important to me has been that working here has meaning and has benefits for people to work here," he said. "We are working to help employees, to help our customers and to build up the community. That mission gives us shape, structure and purpose to what we do every day."

And that mission will guide the company into its next 100 years.

As for Clark, he'll be starting a new adventure of his own.

"I have a lovely wife, Anne, and two children: Oliver, and his older sister, Alexandra, who lives in Chicago with her husband and 16-month-old daughter," Clark said. "My wife grew up in South Africa, and we are planning to spend a couple of months there next year. I have a brother in Japan and I've always wanted to explore Eastern Europe and go back to Scotland. We'll spend much of the year at a vacation home in northern Michigan."