Rheem Manufacturing Company: engineered for life[MR1.1]™, Built for a Second Century
For over a century, Rheem has powered one of the most essential parts of everyday life: the comfort of the spaces where people live, work, and gather. Whether it’s the water heater tucked away in a garage, the air conditioner keeping a home cool through the summer heat, or the ductless system quietly conditioning a hotel room, our products are woven into the infrastructure of modern comfort, often unnoticed, but never unimportant. That’s the idea behind everything we build: we are engineered for life™.

From Petroleum Packaging to Global Comfort Leader
Our story began in 1925 in Richmond, California, when brothers Richard and Donald Rheem founded a company that started, unexpectedly, as a packaging supplier to the petroleum industry. A third brother, William, helped finance the venture in its earliest days. What began as steel drums for oil evolved, over the following decades, into a manufacturing powerhouse spanning water heating, heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), pool and spa heating, and commercial refrigeration.

Today, we’re headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and operate as an independent subsidiary of Paloma Industries, which took ownership of Rheem in 1988. Under the leadership of President and CEO Chris Peel and Executive Chairman J.R. Jones, we’ve grown to more than 14,000 dedicated employees serving 88 countries through 50+ global brands, a testament to the staying power of a business built on solving one of humanity’s most basic needs: reliable temperature control.

Our Global Brands
Among our family of more than 50 global brands, three stand at the heart of how we show up for homeowners, contractors, and trade professionals in North America. Rheem is our flagship, the name synonymous with dependable water heating and air solutions in millions of homes and businesses across North America and beyond. Ruud, with roots dating back to 1897 when Norwegian immigrant Edwin Ruud invented the first automatic storage water heater, has grown alongside us as a trusted, parallel channel brand, built on the same engineering standards, sold through its own network of dedicated partners. And Friedrich brings a premium, design-forward sensibility to room air conditioning and packaged terminal units, serving customers who expect performance without compromise on style.

A Pursuit of Excellence, A Commitment to Partnership, A Passion for Possibilities
As we move through the next 100 years, with all the opportunities, changes, and challenges they’ll bring, we’re guided by three principles that shape how we work.
• EXCELLENCE. We have a proven drive for excellence across our products, our programs, and our people. We strive to deliver at the highest level in everything we do.
• PARTNERSHIP. Whether it’s tapping the talents of our internal teams or listening to the voice of our customers, we believe true innovation comes from working together.
• POSSIBILITIES. We are constantly pushing what’s possible, from sustainable innovations to the next generation of comfort technology, because staying still has never been part of who we are.

These aren’t words on a wall. They show up in the hundreds of patents we hold, concentrated in areas like heat exchanger technology, cooling systems, and energy conversion, proof that we’re still investing in engineering, not resting on a century of brand recognition. They show up in the manufacturing infrastructure we’ve built across North and South America, Australasia, and the Middle East, so that trade partners, plumbers, HVAC contractors, and distributors have the local support, parts availability, and training they depend on. And they show up in our Innovation Learning Centers and contractor training programs, because we know product quality alone isn’t enough; the people installing and servicing our equipment need to be just as well-equipped as the products themselves.

As Chris Peel and J.R. Jones put it, reflecting on the company’s first hundred years: no amount of thanks could ever be enough for the passion of Rheem’s people, who not only enabled a century of achievement but helped build the culture that makes the company what it is today.

A Greater Degree of Good™
At Rheem, sustainability isn’t just a feature we add to our products, it’s a foundation of who we are as a company. As an industry leader, we continue to innovate and reimagine air and water solutions that drive our customers’ success and protect the environment we all share. Because doing good isn’t enough, we’re committed to A Greater Degree of Good™.

That commitment shows up most clearly in where we’re investing next. Heat pump technology, for both water heating and space conditioning, has become a particular area of focus at Rheem, as heat pumps offer significant efficiency advantages over traditional combustion or resistance-based systems. This shift mirrors a broader industry transition, driven by regulatory pressure and utility incentive programs, toward the electrification of home comfort. We’ve used major industry stages, like the NAHB International Builders’ Show, to showcase this next generation of products, not just as a legacy manufacturer marking a milestone, but as a company actively shaping where the industry goes next.

A Century Later, Still engineered for life™
Perhaps what’s most remarkable about our business is how invisible it remains to the average consumer, despite touching millions of homes and businesses daily. Few homeowners can name their water heater’s manufacturer, and fewer still think about the engineering behind the comfort they take for granted. That invisibility is, in a way, the whole point: our products are designed to work quietly and reliably in the background, year after year, so people don’t have to think about them.

As we move into our second century, the fundamentals that built Rheem, engineering rigor, deep partnership with the trade professionals who install and service our products, and a relentless pursuit of what’s next, remain the foundation. Layered on top is a renewed, company-wide commitment to sustainability and efficiency. Because for us, being engineered for life™ has never just meant building products that last. It means building a company, and a future, worth engineering for.