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 got here 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 diploma in Engineering. After commencement, he labored at a number 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 offering engineering companies to the pump aftermarket business. From the beginning, Harris believed in bettering the reliability and efficiency of pumps and inspiring innovation. He was later appointed as president of Hydro.
Hydro began with a single store in Chicago; underneath Harris’s management and vision Hydro became the biggest unbiased aftermarket pump company on the planet. Today, Hydro stands proud with 15 service centres in nine nations.
Harris was instrumental in defining the culture of Hydro: unbiased, engineering- and innovation-focused, and dedicated to the client. He helped develop programs for customer schooling in pump processes, believing that the knowledge of how to safely preserve and function pumps was one thing that ought to be shared with everybody. He spearheaded many inventions in the finest way pumps are serviced, using state-of-the-art technology to re-engineer pumps for optimum efficiency.
Harris is survived by his wife of fifty six years, Rita, who he met while on the University of Illinois. She later became vice chairman of Hydro, they usually worked side-by-side to make the company preeminent within the business. Their management was characterised by a special commitment to their staff, who they handled like family. They inspired all service centres to honour Hydro’s employees with monthly employee celebrations and an annual Employee Appreciation Week. As he as quickly as stated: “Hydro grew to become the corporate it did because of the dedication of our people – machinists, mechanics, engineers, administrative and gross sales staff – who all share a pivotal role in serving our prospects.”
เครื่องวัดแรงดันเกจที่นิยมใช้ of care and loyalty nurtured by the Harrises inspired admiration and esteem in all of Hydro’s employees, a lot of whom have labored at Hydro for greater than 20 years. Harris was also well-respected by his friends inside the pump business. In 2014, 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 priceless contributions to the pump trade.
Bob Jennings, Corporate Trainer, pays a personal tribute:
“I started with HydroAire in 1976 and rapidly discovered that George Harris was the consummate protagonist who at all times expected greater than folks had been willing to provide. As an employee, I realized shortly that half-hearted measures had been unacceptable and an attitude of ‘good enough” was never tolerated. To suppose that he took a rag-tag group of 5 street-wise salesmen and turned the company into a world organization with 19 facilities worldwide is an incredible accomplishment. It took exhausting work, long hours, a “never say never” mindset, and teamwork to grow the corporate as he did. He wanted to be the most effective, he wished the company to be one of the best, and he wished every of his employees to be their finest.
George was a gifted individual 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 modifications.
There was also a aspect of George that most people never had the chance 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 treated their workers as “adopted sons and daughters” and they personally bore the burden of understanding that their enterprise selections not solely have an result on the company but the well-being and security of their workers and their families as nicely.
George shall be deeply missed, but his legacy will stay on. He employed what he considered the “best of breed” and people who shared his imaginative and prescient for the longer term, and the company is saturated with like-minded people who will proceed to grow the company properly into the future.”
Share