Encyclopedia Of Detroit
Reichhold, Henry H.
Henry Helmuth Reichhold developed a faster drying automobile paint that allowed Henry Ford to increase the speed of his automobile production. Reichhold, a chemist and the founder of Reichhold Chemicals Inc., was born in Berlin, Germany in 1901 and educated at the University of Berlin and the University of Vienna. In 1921 he joined his father’s paint and varnish business, Beck, Koller & Company, in Vienna, Austria.
Three years later Reichhold moved to the United States where he went to work in the paint department of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan. One year later, in 1925, he was made technical head of the department. Ford used paints that were a carry-over from the carriage days, made with natural resins and gums, that took days to dry, critically slowing the mass production process. Reichhold’s brother, Otto, informed him of a fast-drying resin made by his father’s business in Vienna, and in 1925 sent 20 bags to Detroit.
The synthetic resins made a paint that dried in a matter of hours, not days, thus contributing significantly to Ford’s ability to efficiently mass produce automobiles. The paint product, which he distributed from a friend’s garage, was named “Beckacite,” after Beck, Koller & Company.
Reichhold’s goal was to have his own company, so borrowing money from his father, in 1927 he purchased a factory in a Detroit suburb to begin production of resins and raw materials for paints. Reichhold’s brother Otto was to join him in the new company, which began as a Beck, Koller subsidiary, but was killed in the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. The company became Reichhold Chemicals, Inc. in 1938. In 1943 Reichhold changed his given name from Helmuth to Henry.
Dominating the company for 54 years, Reichhold expanded it into a diversified, publicly owned, international chemical corporation. In 1951, the company moved its headquarters from Ferndale, Michigan to Rockefeller Center in New York City. By the time Reichhold retired in 1982, the company had factories in 23 states and 24 countries, producing resins, plastics, adhesives, paints, and other products. In 1987 it became a subsidiary of its partner, Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, but was later bought out from Dainippon and today remains a privately held company.
When he retired in 1982, Reichhold had the longest tenure as chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company. As a philanthropist, he was behind the revival of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1942. He was responsible for the New Berlin Academy of Arts, that replaced one destroyed in World War II. He made a number of sizable contributions to projects in the U.S. Virgin Islands, receiving that territory’s Medal of Honor. His scientific work was recognized by the Intra-Research Foundation of Los Angeles when he was awarded its Louis Pasteur Humanitarian Award in 1976. After a long and distinguished career, Henry H. Reichhold passed away at his home in Armonk, New York on December 11, 1989 at the age of 88.
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