Magazine serving the bus and rail transit & motorcoach operations since 1904
Issue link: https://metromag.epubxp.com/i/131307
transit business REI celebrates 75 years, looks ahead to new technology development BY ALEX ROMAN, Managing Editor t Photo courtesy REI This year marks Radio Engineering Industries' (REI) 75th anniversary. The company is celebrating this milestone with its customers at trade shows, including last January's UMA Motorcoach Expo; updating and releasing new products; and hosting a fun night out at the local baseball park in Omaha, Neb., for its employees and their families. METRO Magazine spoke to REI's President Scott Hays, who reflected on the company's 75 years in business and discussed its future. How does it feel for your family-owned company to attain the success it has? There is no greater satisfaction than taking a role over from my father, running the company, and then, seeing my children come into the company as well. Tere are four active third-generation family members that work here now, and we all worked in various areas of the company — the production floor, the metal shop, the shipping department, quality control — before we diversifed and took over diferent managerial roles within the company. I take pride in knowing that, just as we did, my kids will work in multiple areas of the company before one day working their way up like we did. Discuss the company's growth over the years. A lot of my early memories are based on how the business has changed over the years. Ever since I've been driving, cars always came with radios, but when I was younger, cars didn't come with them, so I remember there being a great deal of local walk-in business from folks who wanted to have one installed. Back then, everybody embraced distribution modules. Meaning, we were a company that would make our own products, but we would also sell all kinds of other popular brands like Panasonic and Sony. What really changed, when I was young, though, was the distribution 16 < mETRO mAGAZINE JUNE 2013 With four active third-generation family members, including President Scott Hays (bottom row, fourth from left), REI continues to be a family-owned and run company. model was being eliminated; manufacturers were going direct to the dealer networks without having distribution. So at that time, we directed our company to invest more into developing, manufacturing and developing our own products. Who was responsible for that change in direction and why? It was my dad, Robert Hays. Te reason for the change was actually twofold. In the late 1970s, Blue Bird was one of the frst companies we built custom products for, when they asked us to build a radio with public address capabilities. So, we designed and manufactured a custom radio for them. Following that, we found other companies were also looking for the same kind of specialized electronics, not just items you could buy at a consumer electronics store. I also remember going out to Motor Coach Industries with my dad, and they mentioned they would like to fnd a company that could build a public address system designed for their bus. So, we did that too. Both of these products carved out a new niche nobody was doing back then. We got into building different customized electronics for different manufacturers. We would walk in, talk with their engineering and manufacturing groups, and ask what they needed on their bus. Many were looking for something unique, and we were a company that could provide it. We also did many other unique things, such as building product for AT&T;, building circuit boards for Minuteman Missiles, and were the second video store in the state of Nebraska back when VHS and Beta were having their battles and renting tapes was a brand-new concept. At one time, we were even one of the largest manufacturers of bottle washers and fllers that flled purifed water bottles for home delivery, but eventually, sold that of. We have done a lot of ofshoots of different unique things, and why I bring that up is, we are very unique in our manufacturing capabilities — we can really do a lot of diferent things for customers. After building those initial products, how rapid was the growth? We started building these initial custom products within the commercial transpor- metro-magazine.com