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Clint Reid: May the Force Be with Him

Clint Reid calls the Community Foundation of Middlesex County (CFMC) a force multiplier, and as chair of the board of directors, he is not talking the language of “Star Wars.”

“The foundation multiplies the efforts of small donors. We aggregate a lot of small-dollar donations into one big pile and deploy them effectively,” he says. “We have the perspective we need to look at the whole county and champion it from that perspective.”

The community foundation provides grants in a wide range of areas in Middlesex County, including education, health, recreation, and cultural activities. The foundation also has seminars and workshops for leaders of participating organizations.

Clint, a Deep River resident, has been a member of the CFMC board of directors for some five years. He had served as treasurer and on the executive committee before assuming the chairmanship in January of this year. “I worked my way up the food chain,” he explains.

He points out CFMC covers the entire area of Middlesex County “from Clinton to Cromwell.” In all, the organization serves some 24 communities, with diverse and differing needs that the foundation takes into account in its work.

Clint has the time he needs to devote to CFMC work because, after a 30-year career in the health care field, he is now retired. His last position was as vice president of market development at Quil Health. Still, he says his years of corporate work have given him a vital skill: the ability to close a deal, a useful skill in charitable fundraising as well.

“I will shake hands, kiss babies; I’ve made a career of asking,” he says.

Clint’s wife, Meredith Ryan-Reid, is the CEO of Versant Health, a company involved with eye and vision care that was acquired by MetLife in 2020.

Clint recalls the days when it seemed the pair would each be pulling a piece of carry-on luggage for a business trip.

“Someone had to be there to take care of the kids,” he says. “I decided I would do the blocking and tackling.”

The couple has two daughters, Elle, who is 12 years old, and Clint points out, already 6 feet tall. Her sister Madeline is 10. Both girls are multisport athletes

“Elle, really both of them, were running after a ball rolling by when they were babies,” Clint says.

Madeline is a competitive golfer who plays age-level tournaments and is also a gymnast.

Elle is a select-team lacrosse player and a junior golfer as well. During the first week in August, she will compete in the World Championships 2023 — U.S. Kids Golf in the 12-year-old division at Pinehurst in South Carolina. The tournament is limited to the top 50 golfers internationally in each competing age group. To qualify, Clint says, the young golfers in the 12-year-old section must consistently shoot around 80 for 18 holes.

Clint will be part of the tournament as well. Parents act as caddies.

“It’s every day for three days, 18 holes, and it is hot,” he says. According to Cliff, all the parent caddies wear a bib with the competing golfer’s name on it, just like a caddy at a professional tournament.

The players, from all over the world, have a method to communicate even if they do not speak each other’s languages: Google Translate.

“They all use it,” Clint says.

There is an athletic tradition in the Reid family. Clint tries to play tennis or paddle ball daily. His sister Halli was the first woman to swim across Lake Erie. Meredith Ryan-Reid was a lacrosse player on scholarship at the University of Richmond. Meredith and the whole Reid family are today actively involved in coaching the under-12 Lyme Ticks girls’ lacrosse team.

Clint grew up in North East, Pennsylvania, which, he adds, is the location of the largest plant of Welch’s, best known for grape juice and jelly. He is a graduate of the University of Rochester. He and Meredith met when they both worked for Cigna in Boston.

The Reid family first came from New York to Deep River to what was a weekend getaway house. When Elle was 5 years old, Clint recalls, she burst into tears as they left at the end of the weekend because she thought of the house, with a lawn, as “her own park.” That convinced the family, with the ability to arrange flexible work schedules, to relocate in 2016, first to what had been the weekend home, and then with all of them in the house during COVID, in 2021 to a home in Deep River that gave them more space.

The person in the kitchen is usually Clint, the family cook.

“Chicken, chicken, and more chicken; chicken till the cows come home,” he says. But he adds, given his culinary skills, there is also a lot of eating out. “Every restaurant knows the girls’ first names,” he says.

For Clint, community service is a tradition that he learned from his father. “We are obligated to help the community; we want a healthy community. That’s what the community foundation is all about,” he says. “That’s why I spend my time doing it.”

For information on the Community Foundation of Middlesex County, visit middlesexcountycf.org.