Robert Reiner (businessman)

Robert Reiner (18 August 1880–22 August 1960) was a machinist, entrepreneur and businessman. His business is credited with helping to expand the machine embroidery industry in Hudson County, New Jersey during the first half of the twentieth century. By the 1950s, the area known as North Hudson comprising the municipalities of Weehawken, Union City, West New York, Guttenberg, and North Bergen had developed into one of the largest centers for machine embroidery in the world. Reiner first traveled to the United States about 1902. He first installed and then began importing embroidery and other textile machines from Europe. He established what became Robert Reiner Incorporated in Weehawken. Eventually he employed about 200 people. He was the sole importer of VOMAG (Vogtländische Maschinenfabrik AG) embroidery machines from Plauen, Germany. Eventually he produced the first American made schiffli embroidery machine. Reiner held an honorary doctorate of political economy and science from the University of Heidelberg. He remained a benefactor of his native Nürtingen. He was a member of the US Chamber of Commerce, the New York Board of Trade, and was president of the American-German Chamber of Commerce until World War II. In October 1928 he was one of twenty passengers aboard the Graf Zeppelin during its first trans Atlantic commercial passenger flight, flying from Friedrichshafen, Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey.