For Reed Rubber Products, Business and Community Success Are Closely Intertwined
For more than 100 years, Reed Rubber Products has operated in St. Louis—evolving alongside the city itself.
Founded in 1922 by the great-grandfather of current Vice President Oliver Reed, the company began by selling rubber boots, hoses, and raincoats to workers along the Mississippi River. Over the decades, the family-owned business adapted and changed with the times, eventually shifting into industrial rubber extrusion for gaskets and sealing products used in windows, doors, HVAC systems, and other applications.
Today, Reed Rubber Products still manufactures in North St. Louis, where many of the challenges—and opportunities—facing the region remain visible just outside its doors.
For Reed, that proximity has helped shape the company’s thinking about community investment and its longstanding support of Beyond Housing—a relationship that first began under the leadership of his father, who previously served as CEO of the company.
Reed Rubber Company opened its doors in 1922 as a distributor of hose, boots, and gloves.
“There’s a lot of the ghosts of the past,” Reed said, reflecting on the boarded storefronts and disinvestment that still exist in parts of the city surrounding the company’s facility. “And that’s all right next door.”
That reality helped inspire a broader conversation within the company about what it means to invest in the community where you operate—not simply as philanthropy, but as part of the long-term health of the region itself.
“We refined our value statement to include investing in our community,” Reed said. “The priorities for the company are, in no particular order, the customers, the employees, the community, and the environment.”
That philosophy ultimately led Reed Rubber Products to Beyond Housing, whose holistic approach to strengthening communities resonated deeply with the company.
“We’re huge fans of the whole operation,” Reed said. “They’re committed and organized. They’ve got a clear goal.”
Reed said one of the organization’s greatest strengths is its understanding that community challenges are interconnected—and that meaningful progress requires addressing them together.
“They can’t just tackle housing or work or the cleanliness of the streets or crime,” Reed said. “It is a holistic system.”
“It’s really helpful for us to find something where you have these experts who are already engaged. They already have the connections, the network, the plan—and we can just throw a little fuel on the fire.”
For Reed Rubber Products, supporting Beyond Housing also offered something equally important: a way to make a local impact through an organization already deeply embedded in the work.
“We don’t have the capability or the qualifications to organize our own grassroots kind of thing,” Reed said. “It’s really helpful for us to find something where you have these experts who are already engaged. They already have the connections, the network, the plan—and we can just throw a little fuel on the fire.”
That local focus feels increasingly meaningful to Reed at a time when many larger national and global problems can feel distant or overwhelming.
“I feel like people have found purpose and hope in focusing locally,” Reed said. “Looking at your own doorstep where you can have more of an impact.”
“Of course, it helps us as well to invest locally. Not everything that affects the company can be found on the P&L sheet.”
That perspective also reflects a broader belief that the success of businesses and communities are deeply connected.
“Of course, it helps us as well to invest locally,” Reed said. “Not everything that affects the company can be found on the P&L sheet.”
Reed Rubber Products’ headquarters on Union Boulevard, just two miles from Beyond Housing
In addition to financial support, Reed and the company’s staff have invested their time, participating in several volunteer opportunities with Beyond Housing, including Beyond the Backpack and neighborhood housing projects.
For Reed, the company’s involvement ultimately comes back to something simple: investing in the place it calls home.
