Fred Rathe began in the exhibit business as a result of meeting Belmont ‘Bud’ Corn at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. By 1941 Fred was dressing windows at Macy’s and today The Displayers is in its 3rd generation.
1935 – Bud incorporated The Displayers putting his flair for scenic set design to work at the 1939 World’s Fair and becoming known as the youngest, head of a display company.
For 25 seasons (1937-61), Bud was the public address voice of Columbia Universities football missing only one game in 1957, when he was detained by the government of Venezuela while returning from a business trip.
1960 –Reading Eagle (Newspaper) wrote: The Displayers, Inc. built exhibits recently for Argentina and Israel at the U.S. World Trade Fair in New York; erected a combined display for Great Britain, France, West Germany and the Benelux countries at a Chicago fair, and served as one of the two major contractors for the Soviet exposition in New York last year.
1962 – Began my Father, Robert Rathe’s career and the preparation of the 1964 New York World’s Fair where he would help construct seven Pavilions. Bud Corn and The Displayers would produce twelve pavilions including: Austrian, Coca Cola, Economics, France, Greyhound, Missouri, New Mexico, SKFand Transportation & Travel.
Robert grew Rathe Productions to develop exhibits and museums around the world and produce more World’s Fair pavilions between 1964 and 1998, than anyone else in history.
1998 – The Metropolitan Museum of Art was The Displayers first client, Greg Rathe, Principal, is proud to say. It was a small project that lead to a long relationship. Soon after, The Displayers produced 5,500 square feet of the Jewish Museum’s permanent exhibition, and then designed and produced The Police Museum’s 3,000 sq.ft 9/11 exhibition (in 90 days and on budget). These projects lead to others and new relations providing The Displayers opportunity to grow and become known for its work. Most recently Greg is proud of completing the New York Transit Museum’s 2,000sq.ft. permanent exhibit on Electricity and (2) projects at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Trained in Industrial Design, Greg enjoys the engineering that takes place behind the designs and thrives on the challenges clients bring The Displayers. Solving and delivering projects that exceed expectations on time and budget provides him his greatest satisfaction, no matter the projects scale. He believes client service and satisfaction is as important as the quality of the components The Displayers create.
Greg remembers the excitement as a child of walking the Dinosaur halls of the American Museum of Natural History with his father (Robert Rathe) knowing he had built them … it was in moments like these, Greg knew what his career would become.
There was no other industry he ever wanted to be in and since that time has had only one goal, to build on the foundation laid by his family by delivering creative solutions and client satisfaction.
