Kathleen Harris, 76, president of Harris Industrial Gases holds a cutting torch to cut a commemorative chain link celebrating the firm’s 90th year in business in Citrus Heights. Photo courtesy of Citrus Heights Chamber of Commerce

 

CITRUS HEIGHTS, CA (MPG) - On Saturday, May 18, Kathleen Harris, 76, president of Harris Industrial Gases donned her protective glasses, put on her leather welding gloves and honored her grandfather Harold A. Harris’ legacy by lighting a cutting torch to slice a commemorative chain link celebrating the firm’s 90th year in business in Citrus Heights.

Harris stood between a length of chain which was suspended between two blue welding tanks with the years 1936 and 2026 each stenciled on them in front of their corporate headquarters at 8475 Auburn Ave., near Interstate 80 in Citrus Heights.

The anniversary ceremony was attended by Citrus Heights city officials, local elected representatives and members of the Citrus Heights Chamber of Commerce who joined Harris in commemorating the original 1936 grand opening ceremony.

In 1936, Harold A. Harris opened Harris Welding, and for over 80 years Harris Industrial Gases has remained in the family, owned and operated through four generations – never moved, never sold.

Kathleen Harris, president of Harris Industrial Gases, stands outside her company’s headquarters at 8475 Auburn Blvd., in Citrus Heights. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Harris

Winning tickets were drawn in special anniversary celebration charity raffle of complete welding packages, equipment and tools which helped benefit two charities, Gold Country Wildlife Rescue and Single Mom Strong

Much has changed at Harris Industrial Gases since 1936 when the firm was founded. The rural community of Sylvan has been incorporated into the city of Citrus Heights.

The drive-in movie theater which used to be located behind the shop where Kathleen Harris used to watch the latest Hollywood releases during hot summers as a young girl in the back of her Chevy pickup truck is long gone.

Eminent domain has shrunk the firm’s business footprint since the widening of Auburn Boulevard from a two-lane gravel road. The city’s current two-year Auburn Boulevard Phase 2 construction is nearing completion, adding new sidewalk to the front entrance to the facility. The original parking lot was recently repaved.

Harold Harris, a U.S. Army welder in World War I, first worked on the original San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and moved his family north to Fair Oaks for a new start after losing everything during the Great Depression. Harris Industrial Gases began when Harold Harris and Elmer Denman first established a fabrication and repair shop known as Harris Welding in the rural community of Sylvan. Courtesy photo

Harold Harris, a U.S. Army welder in World War I, first worked on the original San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and moved his family north to Fair Oaks for a new start after losing everything during the Great Depression.

Harris Industrial Gases began when Harold Harris and Elmer Denman first established the fabrication and repair shop known as Harris Welding.

“Although squarely in the Auburn Boulevard business district, the location was so remote back then that the address printed on their calendars was ‘one mile south of Roseville on U.S. 40,’’ she said.

As the need for welding services diminished, the company switched to retail sales and became Harris Welding Supply, and finally Harris Industrial Gases, in 1995.

A portrait of Kathleen Harris, president of Harris Industrial Gases, standing beside welding bottles. Photo courtesy of Kathleen Harris

Katherine Harris remembers her grandfather fondly and the family business he created.

She honors Harold’s legacy and his tradition of providing quality personal customer service to the firm’s long-term clientele.

“The values that Harold held dear are very important to me,” she said.  She remains just as dedicated to maintaining the same sound business practices and personal, down-home customer service that Harold Harris first established in 1936.

“Our business is family,” she said, and there’s no shortage of family and non-family members involved in day-to-day business activities at Harris Industrial Gases, some of whom have been with the firm for years.

Visitors to Harris’ office are quick to notice a favorite “Girl Boss” she displays on her desk in her modest office just off the sales floor and not far from the main customer service counter.

“Mainly we’re proud that my grandfather Harold passed the business to his son, Kent, who, via my mother, has passed it down to the rest of the family,” Harris said in an earlier interview. She’s been at the helm of daily operations since 1978 and remembers first coming into the shop in 1960 when she was 10 years old.

“I honestly love what I do,” she said. “Why would I do anything else?”

Jeremy Lawson, general manager at Harris Industrial Gasses describes the experience of working for Harris Industrial Gases is essential to understanding the company’s lasting legacy and its future. Lawson has worked for the firm for 20 years.

Today Harris Industrial Gases is the largest independent provider of industrial gases and welding supplies in the Sacramento Valley and surrounding areas.

The company carries top welding supplies and equipment, and supplies many industrial, medical and specialty gases to hundreds of businesses all over Northern California and has four locations, two in California and two in Nevada, one of which serves Tesla’s automotive assembly plant with its complete line of welding product and gases, she said.

The original building on Auburn Boulevard in Citrus Heights serves as corporate headquarters, housing the administrative offices, general accounting department, warehouse, fleet center and an on-site compressed gas fill plant.

Customers arrive daily at the front counter to purchase supplies, fill tanks and purchase a wide range of welding gear in inventory.  

“The experience of working for Harris Industrial Gases is essential to grasping both the company’s lasting legacy and its future,” said its general manager Jeremy Lawson who summarized what his own 20-year career with Harris Industrial Gases personally means to him.

“The Harris family’s legacy goes far beyond the surface of a successful 90-year-old family business where integrity and handshakes still matter. Those values are real, but underneath them is something even more important, the way relationships, hard work, and loyalty are genuinely valued here,” he said.

“Employees are treated as extensions of the Harris family rather than numbers. Whether celebrating weddings and newborns or supporting employees through difficult seasons and loss, the family has always been there beside the employees,” Lawson said.

“Having now worked alongside three generations of the Harris family, and watching the fourth generation being raised, I can honestly say their values, dedication to people, and commitment to relationships have remained remarkably consistent, and are just as important today as they have ever been,” he said.

Eminent domain has shrunk the firm’s business footprint since the widening of Auburn Boulevard from an original two-lane country gravel road. The city’s current two-year Auburn Boulevard Phase 2 construction is nearing completion, adding new sidewalk to the front entrance to the facility. The original parking lot was recently repaved.

Clientele continues to span the business spectrum, ranging from CalTrans and California State Prisons to municipalities, utilities, construction, scientific research facilities, welding shops, welding programs in local schools and colleges and small family businesses in the greater Sacramento and Reno Sparks areas. The business also offers student and veteran discounts on most welding supplies.

Store inventory includes a complete line of welding supplies and safety equipment including goggles, gloves and helmets; tools, abrasives and chipping hammers; safety glasses and face protection; protective leather clothing, fire resistant cloth and welding curtains and brass fitting and gas apparatus.

“We have just about everything that a professional or an amateur welder could ever need,” Harris said.

“We’re keeping my grandfather’s tradition of friendly service and knowing our customers by first name alive and well. Honestly, we plan on being around another 80 years.”