Bedford Reinforced Plastics celebrates 50 years of business success

Bedford Reinforced Plastics (Bedford, Pa., U.S.) — a full-service supplier offering an extensive line of fiberglass-reinforced polymer (GFRP) products and services — is celebrating 50 years of business success.  

Many great companies have stories of starting in garages, and Bedford’s story is similar — except instead of a garage, the company was founded in a small barn in rural Pennsylvania in 1974. With one dozen employees and three pultrusion machines, the company primarily manufactured products for the agricultural market.

Today, Bedford Reinforced Plastics has expanded to 200 full-time employees and traded its humble beginnings in the barn for more than 200,000 square feet of manufacturing and fabrication space at two facilities.

For the past five decades, the company has invested in creating new technologies and state-of-the-art fabrication methods to enhance its line of high-performance structural fiberglass products to serve a wide range of applications and markets. Bedford’s product offering includes ReadySeries modular FRP structures, PROForms pultruded FRP structural shapes, PROGrate pultruded FRP grating and PROGrid molded FRP grating.

“The Stahl family started this company 50 years ago with the goal of providing quality products, coupled with a strong focus on innovation and the determination to truly solve customers’ challenges. Those original values remain the driving force for our team every day and make this significant milestone possible,” Glenn Smith, Bedford general manager, says. “As we celebrate this anniversary, we’re already looking to the future and our continued success as an industry leader for the next half-century.”

In addition to being a manufacturer of pultruded and molded FRP, Bedford is invested in the latest developments in robotics and 3D printing.  The company introduced a transportation division, Reinforced Logistics, in 2023 that specializes in freight arrangement and managed transportation services throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The company plans to commemorate its golden anniversary with a celebration event in the spring for employees, valued customers, vendor partners, and state and local dignitaries.