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 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 commencement, he worked at several main pump companies as an application engineer and regional supervisor.
In 1969, Harris was one of many 4 engineers who founded Hydro, Inc. with the mission of offering engineering services to the pump aftermarket business. From the beginning, Harris believed in improving the reliability and efficiency of pumps and inspiring innovation. He was later appointed as president of Hydro.
Hydro started with a single store in Chicago; underneath Harris’s management and vision Hydro became the largest impartial aftermarket pump firm in the world. Today, Hydro stands proud with 15 service centres in 9 international locations.
Harris was instrumental in defining the culture of Hydro: unbiased, engineering- and innovation-focused, and devoted to the shopper. He helped develop programs for customer education in pump processes, believing that the knowledge of the method to safely keep and operate pumps was something that ought to be shared with everybody. He spearheaded many inventions in the way in which pumps are serviced, using state-of-the-art know-how to re-engineer pumps for maximum effectivity.
Harris is survived by his wife of 56 years, Rita, who he met while at the University of Illinois. She later became vp of Hydro, and so they worked side-by-side to make the corporate preeminent in the industry. Their leadership was characterised by a special dedication to their employees, who they treated like family. They encouraged all service centres to honour Hydro’s employees with month-to-month worker celebrations and an annual Employee Appreciation Week. As he once said: “Hydro grew to become the corporate it did due to the commitment of our folks – machinists, mechanics, engineers, administrative and gross sales staff – who all share a pivotal function in serving our clients.”
The tradition of care and loyalty nurtured by the Harrises inspired admiration and esteem in all of Hydro’s workers, a lot of whom have labored at Hydro for greater than 20 years. Harris was also well-respected by his peers within the pump business. In 2014, he was elected as president of the Hydraulic Institute, the largest affiliation of pump business manufacturers 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 private tribute:
“I started with HydroAire in 1976 and rapidly learned that George Harris was the consummate protagonist who always expected more than people were prepared to offer. As an employee, I learned rapidly that half-hearted measures have been unacceptable and an angle of ‘good enough” was by no means 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 amenities worldwide is a tremendous accomplishment. It took hard work, long hours, a “never say never” mindset, and teamwork to grow the corporate as he did. He wished to be the most effective, he wanted the company to be the best, and he wanted every of his workers to be their finest.
George was a gifted individual who had the uncanny capacity to “see over the horizon” and could glimpse the long run needs of the industry lengthy before others had digested final week’s adjustments.
There was also a facet of George that most people by no means had the chance to see: As tenacious a businessman as he was, he was equally generous and caring to those within the “Hydro Family.” George and Rita all the time treated their employees as “adopted sons and daughters” and they personally bore the burden of knowing that their enterprise choices not solely affect the company however the well-being and security of their workers and their families as properly.
George will be deeply missed, but his legacy will reside on. Super secret hired what he considered the “best of breed” and those that shared his vision for the longer term, and the corporate is saturated with like-minded individuals who will proceed to develop the corporate well into the lengthy run.”
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