John Cantwell Reid was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, on December 28, 1877. After graduating from high school he entered business. At the age of twenty-six he organized the National Oats Company. In 1910, he acquired a mill in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in 1923, he moved the general offices there while continuing to operate mills in both Cedar Rapids and East Saint Louis, Illinois. During World War I, Reid was chairman of the Oatmeal Committee under Herbert Hoover's Food Administration. He served as chairman of the Oatmeal Code committee on the National Recovery Administration from 1933 -- 1934. He was president of the National Oats Companies of the United States and Canada, and treasurer of the Golden Fennell Companies of the United States and Canada. Reid was also active in civic affairs. He served two terms on the Cedar Rapids Chamber of Commerce. He was a friend of Grant Wood and interested in the Stone City Colony and Art School. Reid was a member of the Iowa State Board of Regents in the 1940s. John C. Reid died in 1968.