Harris Companies, Inc. • 800-500-5438 • http://www.harriscompanies.com
Reprinted from GRAIN JOURNAL November/December 2018 Issue
In 1960, Roger Harris started an electrical business out of his home in Arthur, IL called Harris Electric. The work consisted mostly of wiring farmsteads and residential homes. His wife, Glenna, assisted Roger by doing the bookwork. In 1961, the husband-and-wife team moved to Atwood, IL where they continued to operate the business out of their home. The Harrises worked by themselves until 1965 when they hired their first employee, George Fombelle.
In 1969, Harris purchased the building where the company still is operated today, and a year later, Wanda Long was hired as the first office employee.
In 1977, Harris, with the help of Lloyd Lowder, started providing service within the grain industry to repair old wooden manlifts and renamed the company Harris Industries, Inc. He later expanded this service to include special purpose personnel elevators and belt manlifts.
“My dad, Roger, expanded to special purpose elevator work in 1978,” recalls Vice President Scott Harris. “And then in 2003, we purchased Viola Industries of Arkansas City, KS, which was a manufacturer of elevators, and moved that operation here to Atwood. We have grown the business from there.”
Today, Harris Companies Inc. has two divisions: Elevator and Electrical. The company celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2010, and Roger Harris takes pride in what the family-owned and operated company has become today.
What started out as a one-man electrical business operated out of his home has expanded and continues to expand into a multifaceted business employing nearly 25 people, which takes him and his employees worldwide.
According to Scott Harris, much of the company’s growth over the years has come by “listening to the customers and establishing good personal communication, quality products at a reasonable price, and standing behind those products while offering good customer service.”
Another factor Harris attributes to the company’s growth is its turnkey approach to business, as well as a special focus on quality that the company takes great pride in. “We do everything from design to build to installation, and our equipment, it has our name on it, so we want to build it exceptionally well. We put a lot of effort into quality,” he explains.
The principle of providing quality products from start to finish is the foundation on which the company is built.
At the end of the day, Harris hopes that customers are so satisfied that they work with them again. “I hope they come back and they tell other people about us and the good experience they had.”
The sales and service department of Harris Companies' Elevator division specializes in sales, installations, repairs, and safety surveys of special purpose personnel elevators, hand-powered elevators, freight elevators, residential elevators, and church elevators. This enables the company to provide a turnkey installation from the planning, ordering, steel erection, electrical, testing, and instruction of personnel as to the proper use and maintenance of the equipment.
“On the elevator side, we manufacture elevators from basically 500- to 8,000-pound loads – special purpose elevators to freight passenger elevators – and we service and install them,” Harris says. “We also do modifications, upgrades, routine service, safety surveys – anywhere from monthly to annually – and we build towers for elevators.”
The company’s dedicated staff makes an extra effort to make sure all special purpose personnel elevators, hand-powered elevators, and freight elevators are properly installed, repaired, and maintained to meet ASME A17.1 standards.
On the other hand, Harris Companies' Electrical division remains committed to its agricultural roots but has expanded to become more specialized in the field.
The company’s skilled electrical crew has experience and has been trained to install and maintain explosion protection systems, hazardous monitoring, PLC hardware and software, Generac generators, Kohler generators, and temperature cable systems. These systems are installed in grain facilities, aerosol-filling companies, or anywhere the occurrence of dangerous, destructive vapor and dust explosions are a possibility throughout the United States.
