Tributes paid to Hydro, Inc.’s president and founder.
George F. Harris, president and founding father of Hydro, Inc.
Hydro, Inc. has introduced the passing of its president and founder, George F. Harris, on December twentieth, 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 labored at a quantity of main pump corporations as an application engineer and regional supervisor.
In 1969, Harris was one of many four engineers who founded Hydro, Inc. with the mission of providing engineering providers to the pump aftermarket trade. From the start, Harris believed in bettering 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; underneath Harris’s leadership and imaginative and prescient Hydro became the biggest independent aftermarket pump company in the world. Today, Hydro stands proud with 15 service centres in nine international locations.
Harris was instrumental in defining the culture of Hydro: unbiased, engineering- and innovation-focused, and devoted to the customer. He helped develop programs for buyer schooling in pump processes, believing that the data of how to safely keep and function pumps was one thing that ought to be shared with everybody. He spearheaded many inventions in the way pumps are serviced, using state-of-the-art know-how to re-engineer pumps for max efficiency.
Harris is survived by his spouse of 56 years, Rita, who he met while at the University of Illinois. She later grew to become vice president of Hydro, and they labored side-by-side to make the corporate preeminent within the industry. เกจวัดอาร์กอน was characterised by a particular dedication to their workers, who they handled like household. They encouraged all service centres to honour Hydro’s employees with monthly employee celebrations and an annual Employee Appreciation Week. As he as soon as said: “Hydro turned the company it did due to the commitment of our individuals – machinists, mechanics, engineers, administrative and gross sales employees – who all share a pivotal position in serving our prospects.”
The tradition of care and loyalty nurtured by the Harrises impressed admiration and esteem in all of Hydro’s employees, a lot of whom have labored at Hydro for more than 20 years. Harris was additionally well-respected by his peers throughout the pump trade. In 2014, he was elected as president of the Hydraulic Institute, the biggest association of pump trade producers in North America. In 2015, Europump awarded him its President’s Silver Award in recognition of his valuable contributions to the pump trade.
Bob Jennings, Corporate Trainer, pays a personal tribute:
“I started with HydroAire in 1976 and quickly realized that George Harris was the consummate protagonist who all the time anticipated more than folks have been keen to supply. As an employee, I discovered shortly that half-hearted measures were unacceptable and an angle of ‘good enough” was never tolerated. To think that he took a rag-tag group of 5 street-wise salesmen and turned the company into a global group with 19 facilities worldwide is a tremendous accomplishment. It took onerous work, long hours, a “never say never” mindset, and teamwork to develop the corporate as he did. He needed to be the most effective, he wished the corporate to be the most effective, and he needed every of his workers to be their finest.
George was a gifted particular person who had the uncanny capacity to “see over the horizon” and could glimpse the longer term wants of the trade lengthy before others had digested last week’s adjustments.
There was additionally a side 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 within the “Hydro Family.” George and Rita at all times treated their workers as “adopted sons and daughters” and so they personally bore the burden of knowing that their business decisions not solely have an effect on the company but the well-being and security of their employees and their households as properly.
George shall be deeply missed, but his legacy will stay on. He employed what he thought of the “best of breed” and people who shared his vision for the longer term, and the corporate is saturated with like-minded individuals who will continue to develop the corporate properly into the lengthy run.”
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