Thomas E. (Tom) Rast – Chairman Emeritus of Johnson-Rast & Hays Co. of Birmingham – has said that he is an ordinary man who has had extraordinary things happen to him. However, his extraordinary success in real estate – as well as his extraordinary service to the community and to higher education – belie this modest self-description.
Tom Rast was born in Holt, Alabama, on February 28, 1920, to Sarah A. (nee Blake) and Lucian Holt Rast. He attended Barrett Elementary School and Woodlawn High School in Birmingham (where the family had moved in the early 1920s) before he entered The University of Alabama.
At the University, Tom Rast was president of his fraternity; a member of the “A” Club and of Scabbard and Blade; and captain of the 1940 boxing team. He earned varsity letters in boxing and track. After graduating with a B.S. degree in Commerce and Business Administration in 1943, he entered the armed forces. He served in the Pacific Theater from 1944 to 1946 when he was discharged with the rank of Captain, Transportation Corps.
Returning to Birmingham, the 26-year-old veteran formed Birmingham Automatic Laundry, Inc., with his brother Holt and James Dickson. He found running three launderettes unsatisfying. It could be said that Tom Rast’s career began in 1949 when he and his friend Abner Johnson each borrowed $1500 from Johnson’s mother-in-law and established Johnson-Rast Realty in Homewood. He found that he “loved to sell I liked to get people, sign them up and study their needs. It was very exciting – meeting the needs of people – and very fulfilling.”
The enthusiasm of Tom Rast and his partner soon generated the growth of the new firm. In 1955, Robert Hays joined Abner Johnson and Tom Rast to incorporate a separate insurance company – it was “a natural” for real estate people at that time because they could insure the houses they sold. The new company – Johnson-Rast & Hays – was a one-office business with about nine agents. Its major period of growth came in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the early 1970s, the company expanded into residential property development. (Before the development operation was phased out nearly a decade later, more than 1,000 acres and more than 2000 lots had been developed.) However, the company was “capital-poor.” Tom Rast and the president of Golden Enterprises “struck a deal.” The company became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Golden Enterprises; and Rast, a member of the Golden board of directors. But in 1975, he and Robert Reed (who had joined Johnson-Rast and Hays in 1972) bought back their real estate company.
Johnson-Rast & Hays then developed a ten-year plan for concentration in commercial development and property management, commercial brokerage and residential brokerage, and the phasing out of other aspects of the business.
Johnson-Rast & Hays has since expanded into the largest real estate firm in the state with 12 branch offices, 350 sales associates, and about 70 other employees.
The firm has been involved in just about every phase of real estate. Today, the company focuses on four main facets: residential, commercial sales, commercial leasing and management, and development and joint venture activities.
Tom Rast attributes the success of Johnson Rast & Hays to hard work and the quality of its people. As he has said, “Get the right people in. Do the right thing. Be fair and knowledgeable.”
He has also said that all at the firm have tried to be good citizens and ethical performers.
Through service, Tom Rast has certainly stood by his belief in good citizenship. For example, he has served in various capacities in community activities such as the Girls Club of Birmingham, the United Way, the Birmingham Association of Homebuilders, the Birmingham Board of Realtors, the Diabetes Trust Foundation, the Columbia Theological Seminary, and the Monday Morning Quarterback Club. His current community activities include, among others, serving on the boards of the Crippled Children’s Foundation, the Alabama Motorists Association, the Southern Research Institute, and the Executive Service Corps of Birmingham.
Tom Rast has also been a champion of higher education. The University of Alabama and subsequently The University of Alabama System have been a major focus of Tom Rast and his wife Minnie Hayes Rast since they met at the Capstone. (They were married in 1944 and have three daughters: Martha R. Debuys, Nan R. Arendall, and Jane R. Arendall, and seven grandchildren – 6 boys, 1 girl.)
At the Capstone, he was a charter member of the Commerce Executives Society (an organization of alumni and friends of the College of Commerce and Business Administration pledged to support better education for business). He has served and is still serving, as a member of the President’s Cabinet.
He is now also serving as National Chairman of the Campaign for Alabama – a multi-million-dollar campaign that reached the halfway mark in less than a year. About this most recent service, Tom Rast has said that he has never been a part of anything like the Campaign for Alabama because it is the most professional and most complete campaign he has ever encountered. From his point of view, he says that it has to be because “I think each of us recognizes that Alabama’s first University deserves only our best efforts.”
Through the years, he has also been actively involved in the growth of the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is a founding member of the UAB President’s Council (established in 1979) of which he is still a member. He also serves on the Board of Directors of UAB’s Medical and Educational Foundation, and both he and Johnson Rast & Hays, Co. have given generously to special projects and programs. In recognition of the Rast’s continuing support of UAB, the most recent residence hall was named Rast Hall in ceremonies on June 25, 1993.
In 1979, Tom Rast was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama System. During his 11-year tenure, he held several important committee posts. Among these were the chairmanship of the finance committee and the hospital committee. He retired from the board in 1990 and now serves as Trustee Emeritus. The appointment, he has said, was “the nicest thing that happened to me…I could feel and see what I was doing to help.”
Tom Rast has always had a desire to leave the world a better place – by doing good for humanity. For his efforts, he has been honored with many awards. Here are a few. In 1981, he was elected to honorary membership in the Rotary Club of Birmingham. In 1983, he was the first recipient of ‘The President’s Cup” awarded by the Birmingham Association of Realtors. In 1984, he was named alumnus of the year by The University of Alabama National Alumni Association. In 1986, he was elected to the Woodlawn High School Hall of Fame and the Alabama Academy of Honor. In 1989, at the first College of Commerce and Business Administration reunion and awards banquet at the Capstone, he was the recipient of the Award for Service to the Commerce Executives Society. In 1991, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Tom Rast has certainly served humanity and will leave the world a better place. He has given extraordinary service.
