John C. Reib
Conair Corporation
Inducted 1988
John C. Reib (1923 – 2001) was a pioneer in the field of auxiliary equipment for plastics processing. He developed the first automatic vacuum hopper loader and the first on-the-press automatic loader/color blender, which made possible automation of material handling and blending of plastics materials.
Reib was born in Cooperstown, Pennsylvania. His first job out of high school was running an injection molding machine at Franklin Plastics. After completing several engineering courses, he joined Shaw Industries in 1945 as a mold maker, later taking on a sales role selling molds to plastics processors. In 1955, he started his own sales representative company, Reib Associates, in Rainville, Colorado. He soon shifted his focus to equipment manufacturing when his supplier discontinued a line of drum tumblers. He improved on the design to meet market needs and formed Conair Corporation in 1956 to produce a wider range of auxiliary equipment for plastics processors. This included the first small labor-saving vacuum loader for transferring plastic pellets from shipping containers into plastics processing machinery.
Conair has become a worldwide manufacturer and marketer of auxiliary product lines for the plastics industry. John Reib held several patents issued to him in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., West Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Mexico. In 1987, Conair merged with GWH Holdings, Inc. of Pittsburgh, and Reib was named Chairman of the Board of Conair.
In the early 1990s, Reib formed Intrac Systems, Inc. to provide solutions to plastic molders, manufacturers, and tool builders. Reib installed Michael Mucciarone, founder and owner of Camis Systems, as Intrac’s President. In 1996, Reib sold all his stock in Intrac to Mucciarone.
John was active in many professional societies, including the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) and the Plastics Pioneers Association. He served on the Board of Trustees of the National Plastics Center and Museum in Leominster, Massachusetts. Reib received the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI, now PLASTICS) Eastern Section Annual Achievement Award, served as an SPI Board of Directors member, and chaired the Auxiliary Equipment Section and Machinery Division of SPI. He also served on the Public Affairs Committee as Product Liability Issue Coordinator and represented the U.S. and the SPI at a Tripartite Conference on Product Liability in West Germany. In 1987, he received the SPE Award for Outstanding Business Management.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastic machinery, Management, and Sales