Richard Reed is one of the first American-born tae kwon do black belts to have taught the art in the United States. His greatest contribution to the martial arts is, he believes, a business system he devised with his Korean instructor, Haeng Ung Lee.
Born in 1941, Reed began studying tae kwon do in 1960 under the late Myung Gil Kim at Osan Air Force Base, where Reed was an Air Policeman. Throwing himself into the art during off-duty time, he began training with Master Lee, Kim’s instructor, in Osan. He tested in Seoul for his 1st-degree black belt in 1961 at the Chung Do Kwan headquarters. Returning to the U.S. in 1962, Reed started a club in Tacoma, Washington, then founded his first commercial school that same year in order to have an “operating business” necessary to bring
Master Lee to the U.S. from Korea. Dis-charged from the Air Force in 1964, he invested all his time into developing a business system for juniors seeking a tae kwon do career. Reed’s 1968 school was perhaps the first in the U.S. to be equipped with full fitness center facilities. In 1969, he aided Master Lee in the formation of the American Taekwondo Association (ATA), an expansion of an earlier regional association. He formed a support organization for new career instructors in 1971. And in 1973, he created a financing arm for ATA instructors, the same year he received his 4th degree in Seoul. Reed wrote the first copyrighted instructor kit for Master Lee in 1974. He then moved to Denver in 1975 to centralize business support operations. In
1980, Reed returned to instruction with the founding of his pilot ATA Fitness Center in San Francisco. There he spearheaded a move to modernize business support systems for ATA structors. He was promoted to 5th degree in 1981 at a national testing Las Vegas. Today, Reed continues to operate out of San Francisco and is Executive Vice-President of the reportedly 100,000-member ATA, the largest centrally administered tae kwon do organization in the U.S., with 270 branch schools. The ATA keeps computerized rank records, maintains toll-free phone numbers, instructor training programs, a slick organizational publication, and offers business training and support for commercial operations.