YORK, PA. (May 6, 2014) – Today two York College Students will get a big boost to help pay for tuition from a man who built his York business selling industrial lifts. Brianna Boyer of Shrewsbury and Jason McAnulty of New Jersey will each receive checks today for $2,500 as winners of the Reinhardt Young Entrepreneur Award. The checks will be presented by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), a leading small-business association, of which Richard Reinhardt was a long-time national board member. The scholarships are administered by the NFIB Young Entrepreneur Foundation.
Richard Reinhardt bought a small forklift business in York in 1975, after moving up the ranks from salesman to general manager as an employee of a similar business. Once he owned his own business he had stellar success, adding a facility in Allentown, and expanding sales to six different states. At one point Reinhardt owned or had an interest in 7 different corporations and expanded into office products at a time when word processing equipment sales were soaring.
Not only was Reinhardt a leader in business, he was very active in economic development and politics. He served as York Township Commissioner, chaired The York County Economic Alliance, was a charter member of Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Partnership, served on a congressional commission studying the Family Medical Leave Act, and chaired NFIB’s national PAC.
Reinhardt was determined to help young people get a college education, saying, “I promised to pay back to God if I were successful.” He and his wife Faye created a fund to offer scholarships to students of York College and have been doing so for about 25 years. Now the couple is retired and living in Hilton Head, South Carolina.
Executive State Director of NFIB Pennsylvania, Kevin Shivers said “Dick Reinhart has contributed so much to the Pennsylvania economy, to NFIB as a long-time member and to our future business leaders through this scholarship.”
