At the age of 13, Prasad Reddy’s father passed away. Latcha Reddy worked as an engineer for the Indian government, and his death hit especially hard because his steady hand guided his large family. As the oldest of three brothers, Prasad knew it would become his responsibility to fill his father’s shoes. Although that might have been daunting for most teenagers, he had already enrolled in college at age 13 and leaned into making the most of gifts. In 1970, when he was 24, Reddy packed up his wife and newborn and left his engineering job in India to pursue higher education in America.
He landed at Ohio University, earning his master’s degree in just one year, including writing the first five chapters of a professor’s book on statistical probability and quality control and working part-time to make ends meet for his family. Eventually, Reddy entered the footwear industry, working with boot company Wolverine, followed by a decade-long stint with K-Swiss. In 2009, he moved to Texas from Michigan after 30 years and purchased Twisted X Global Brands, a Decatur-based lifestyle, western, work, and outdoor footwear company.
Here, the president and CEO shares how his father’s life lessons and early adult years in India shaped how he runs his business today.
“My father was a very kind person,” Reddy says. “At the time, there was a caste system in India, and the treatment of different types of people varied. But he treated everyone the same. He said we were all equal, so there is no class difference just because we’re born in certain households or locations. He taught us we all had to be kind to everyone. At Twisted X, we want to be one team. I may be the CEO, and we all have responsibilities and roles, but we’re all the same. We all try to make the company one of the best to be with. One team, one family, all equal. Treat everyone with respect and have fun. We always say, ‘Let’s have fun.’ In India, we didn’t have many industries; I did not have opportunities to do something different. It was very structured and regimented in companies, so we did not have flexibility or opportunity for growth.
“I was born in an upper middle class family. We were always a giant family; my brothers, my father, and my father’s brother lived together. It was an agricultural family, but my father was the first one who got out of agriculture and became a professional engineer—one of the few from the area we came from. So, it was a slightly different upbringing for me because I was moving with the rest of my cousins and following my father’s career wherever he had to go. So, my schooling was done in different cities, and college was the same thing. I graduated with two degrees, one in mathematics and another in engineering. But I wanted to pursue something more than what I had then. So that led me to come to the U.S.
“My wife was all for it. My mother was a little bit hesitant. ‘Why do you want to do it? You have a nice life, and your brothers need you,’ she said. They were still young, even though one of them was 19 by that time. So it took almost two years to convince her. My middle brother was excited and said, ‘Maybe you’ll create a path for all of us to do the same thing.’ The younger one wasn’t so sure because he was relying on me. He would be happy one day, and the next day, he would say, ‘You’re leaving me.’ It was not scary; it was more than what I had expected. There was a little bit of excitement, but at the same time, I was cautious because I didn’t know what would happen. I felt like I had to finish school as fast as possible because I was responsible for my wife, kids, and mother.
“My experience was a pleasant one. I was coming to a new country and going to the world’s best country and most industrialized from a poor country. And I didn’t know how people treated each other. But from the first day, everyone was so friendly. My wife always says that when growing up in India, unless you knew somebody, you didn’t even say hello. You may crack a smile and keep going. She came to me on the first day and said somebody asked how she was doing. They were so friendly, especially when we were from a foreign country. It felt like home immediately.
“There were a couple of times when I felt like I should have gone back home, not for professional reasons but for family reasons. ‘Do my brothers and mother need support?’ ‘Do I have to go back and help them there, or do I stay back and keep pushing?’ A couple of times, we talked about it, but my mother told me to do whatever I thought was right and not to come back and take care of them.
“One event that is near and dear to my heart is in 1980, I became a full citizen in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I took the oath and was coming out of President Gerald Ford Memorial Hall. Two ladies from VFW handed me a little American flag and a booklet of the Constitution, and they said, ‘Welcome to America.’ It stuck with me because I was already in America, but this was a different way of being welcomed as a citizen and a true American.”
Because of Reddy’s interaction over 40 years ago, Twisted X has been a corporate sponsor of the VFW since 2013. This past year, at the 25th-anniversary convention, Reddy was awarded the Gold Medal of Merit by the Commander in Chief of the VFW in front of more than 10,000 veterans, receiving a standing ovation. “I didn’t deserve that; they deserve that,” he said.
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