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Inspiring business stories from the Heart of Berks County
Brentwood enters its seventh decade the same way it has grown for the past 60 years: by listening closely, identifying unmet needs and building solutions that are its own. That approach continues today through ongoing investment in research and development, a new product development lab and the expansion of digital and automation capabilities across its operations. Together, these capabilities enable Brentwood to continuously develop new solutions as customer needs evolve and industries advance. With that foundation, the next chapter is already underway.
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Inside the walls, the focus shifts to building people for whatever comes next: cross-training across departments, encouraging engineers to take on work they've never done before and building teams that solve problems together rather than simply escalate them.
The willingness to figure it out, to treat a hard day as positive tension rather than a crisis, is something Caitlin describes as the real competitive advantage. "The collaboration here is excellent," she says. "That's a testament to the team we have."
When Peter took over as CEO in 2010, one of his first priorities was putting more intentionality behind company culture. Four core values emerged from research with employees and customers: wellbeing, ethics, customer focus and entrepreneurship.
Around those values, the Brentwood Beliefs grew—10 action statements that translate them into daily practice. Employees are recognized by their peers for demonstrating these behaviors, reinforcing a culture where appreciation and accountability go hand in hand.
Community investment also is woven into Brentwood’s organizational fabric. Employees receive paid time off specifically for volunteer work. Teams have packed senior meals, staffed technology workshops at Berks Encore and run United Way campaigns that some of their own employees depend on. For example, a production team member who recently led a United Way campaign grew up benefiting from Olivet Boys & Girls Club.
Across its global footprint, Brentwood’s approach to community investment is shaped by what matters most to its employees. In India, for example, the team partnered with a local school to pave outdoor space and create a safer environment for students—an effort rooted in the community the team calls home.
"We've had people say, 'I see you in the community and I want to come work for you,'" Caitlin says. "That means we're making a difference."
Culture as Competitive Advantage
Custom Service Close to Home
The Czech Republic came first. Thailand followed, with the team driving the country with paper MapQuest printouts, evaluating port access, labor availability and infrastructure before settling on Rayong. At the time, it was largely a farming city. Today it draws major global manufacturers. Brentwood has been there 25 years.
"I'm always amazed that the cities we chose are still the right choices today,” says Caitlin.
The decision to expand internationally was less about ambition than about logic. Brentwood's core products are large-format and expensive to ship long distances. If customers in Southeast Asia need a product, the most efficient answer is a facility in Southeast Asia. The same math bears out in Europe, in India and in China.
"Many companies put production in India to get cheap products back and sell them in the U.S.," Caitlin explains. "But we've always focused on local for local. We go to India to service India and the Middle East."
The cultural groundwork for this thinking was laid long before the first international lease was signed. Peter's father left high school at 15, spent three years sailing the world on Danish merchant freighters and returned to earn an engineering degree. The instinct to engage foreign markets rather than fear them was part of the Rye family’s mindset from the start.
"Danes figured out centuries ago that for their economy to function, they had to face the outside world," Peter says. "That's just inherent in the culture."
A Global Growth Strategy
The breadth is intentional, but the work tends to disappear into the systems it supports, quietly enabling performance in industries where reliability matters most.
Strictly focused on B2B, the brand was never built for the consumer’s shelf. It was built for the industries that keep infrastructure running, and 60 years of proprietary product development has made Brentwood into a name those industries trust.
The pivot Peter's father made in the late 1970s took some serious conviction to execute. "He knew he needed to develop his own products," Peter explains. "He needed to have his own reason to go to market, to find his own customers and get out of that job shop business."
It was a transformation in the truest sense—of product lines, yes, but more fundamentally of what kind of company Brentwood was going to be.
That shift led Brentwood into new product areas, from cooling tower fill and wastewater media to medical packaging and battery components. None of it was accidental. Time and again, growth started the same way: a customer with a problem and a team willing to solve it. Those solutions didn’t just fulfill a need—they often became entirely new product categories. “The voice of the customer drives nearly everything we do,” Caitlin adds.
That approach continues to shape the business today. While Brentwood remains active in the product areas it first entered decades ago, its portfolio has expanded to include solutions for stormwater management, building and construction and other essential infrastructure applications.
We have a saying: "Be Brentwood.” It means embodying who we are and why we're here. No matter where you are across the globe, we're all working toward the same goal together."
President & CEO
The Rye family's connection to Brentwood began in 1975 when Palle Rye, a Danish immigrant and engineer who had arrived in Reading via Dana Corporation, purchased the then-decade-old plastics company with 100% bank financing and got to work. It was a modest operation: one building at 610 Morgantown Road, about 35 employees, roughly a million dollars in annual revenue. Nothing about the current operation suggested what it would become.
In the late 1970s, Palle made a decision that would shape Brentwood’s future. The company was operating as a job shop—making components to customer specifications and waiting for the next order. It was a model that put the business at someone else’s mercy: growth depended on the customer’s growth, and loyalty could disappear the moment a competitor quoted a lower price. Palle recognized Brentwood needed its own products, its own market presence and its own reason to exist beyond filling orders.
The pivot into a proprietary business model was the beginning of what Brentwood is today.
"He turned it into a brand," says Caitlin. "Not just a resource—he created intellectual property, know-how, something unique that only we could offer. That has continued and multiplied ever since."
Peter Rye, Palle’s son, joined the company in 1993. Caitlin, Peter’s daughter, came aboard after college in 2011. By the time Peter transitioned to chief strategy officer and Caitlin stepped into the CEO role, Brentwood had expanded far beyond its original Morgantown Road facility—growing into a global organization with operations in West Virginia, Arkansas, the Czech Republic, Thailand, India and beyond. Today the company employs roughly 1,000 people and ships to nearly 100 countries.
The model that drove all of it has stayed the same: listen to customers, find the need that isn't being met and build something only Brentwood can offer.
Sixty years ago, Brentwood Industries started in a rented building outside Reading with two homemade thermoforming machines and a handful of employees. Today, it's a global plastics manufacturer with 15 facilities across three continents, shipping engineered solutions to nearly 100 countries. Its products cool data centers, treat municipal water, protect medical devices and manage stormwater beneath city streets. Most people will never see the solutions it builds—but you'd sure notice if they weren’t there.
Under third-generation family leadership, with Caitlin Banta of the Rye family recently named president and CEO, this is the story of how a small family business in Berks County grew into a powerful force in global manufacturing.
