Tributes paid to Hydro, Inc.’s president and founder.
George F. Harris, president and founder of Hydro, Inc.
Hydro, Inc. has announced the passing of its president and founder, George F. Harris, on December 20th, 2021.
Born in Chicago in 1941, Harris came from humble beginnings, working as a waiter and a taxi driver. He attended the University of Illinois at Champaign and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering. After graduation, he worked at several major pump companies as an application engineer and regional manager.
In 1969, Harris was one of the four engineers who based Hydro, Inc. with the mission of offering engineering companies to the pump aftermarket industry. From the beginning, Harris believed in enhancing the reliability and efficiency of pumps and encouraging innovation. He was later appointed as president of Hydro.
Hydro started with a single shop in Chicago; beneath Harris’s management and imaginative and prescient Hydro became the biggest independent aftermarket pump company on the planet. Today, Hydro stands proud with 15 service centres in 9 countries.
Harris was instrumental in defining the culture of Hydro: unbiased, engineering- and innovation-focused, and dedicated to the shopper. He helped develop packages for buyer training in pump processes, believing that the information of the method to safely keep and function pumps was something that should be shared with everybody. He spearheaded many inventions in the method in which pumps are serviced, using state-of-the-art know-how to re-engineer pumps for max efficiency.
Harris is survived by his wife of fifty six years, Rita, who he met whereas on the University of Illinois. She later grew to become vice president of Hydro, and they worked side-by-side to make the company preeminent in the industry. Their leadership was characterised by a special dedication to their staff, who they treated like household. They inspired all service centres to honour Hydro’s employees with month-to-month employee celebrations and an annual Employee Appreciation Week. As he once stated: “Hydro became the corporate it did because of the dedication of our folks – machinists, mechanics, engineers, administrative and gross sales workers – who all share a pivotal role in serving our customers.”
The culture of care and loyalty nurtured by the Harrises impressed admiration and esteem in all of Hydro’s workers, a lot of whom have labored at Hydro for more than 20 years. Harris was additionally well-respected by his friends within the pump trade. In Private , he was elected as president of the Hydraulic Institute, the largest association of pump industry producers in North America. In 2015, Europump awarded him its President’s Silver Award in recognition of his valuable contributions to the pump industry.
Bob Jennings, Corporate Trainer, pays a private tribute:
“I started with HydroAire in 1976 and quickly realized that George Harris was the consummate protagonist who always expected greater than individuals had been keen to supply. As an worker, I discovered rapidly that half-hearted measures have been unacceptable and an perspective of ‘good enough” was by no means tolerated. To assume that he took a rag-tag group of 5 street-wise salesmen and turned the company into a world group with 19 services worldwide is a tremendous accomplishment. It took onerous work, lengthy hours, a “never say never” mindset, and teamwork to grow the company as he did. He wished to be the most effective, he needed the company to be the most effective, and he needed every of his staff to be their finest.
George was a gifted individual who had the uncanny ability to “see over the horizon” and will glimpse the future wants of the trade long earlier than others had digested final week’s changes.
There was additionally a aspect of George that most individuals by no means had the opportunity to see: As tenacious a businessman as he was, he was equally beneficiant and caring to these in the “Hydro Family.” George and Rita all the time handled their workers as “adopted sons and daughters” and they personally bore the burden of figuring out that their enterprise choices not only have an effect on the company however the well-being and safety of their staff and their households as nicely.
George might be deeply missed, but his legacy will reside on. He employed what he thought-about the “best of breed” and those who shared his vision for the long run, and the corporate is saturated with like-minded individuals who will continue to develop the company nicely into the longer term.”
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