Donald Barnes: 50 Years in the Making

Donald Barnes started working at Harris Manufacturing part-time at 16 years old and transitioned to a full time employee the day after his high school graduation. At an early age Don bought shares in the company and was heavily involved as a shareholder. He took it upon himself to do extensive research into castings. He worked around the clock to find ways to make better castings more efficiently. Don worked with customers to re-design patterns and castings in order to improve products and minimize the number of processes. He worked with ingot suppliers to get chemical and physical analysis of his test bars in order to develop better alloys. These test bars helped ensure consistency between batches for better quality.

Don took it upon himself to head the sales force in his 20’s. His technical knowledge helped him to quickly gain new accounts. He became President in 1991 at 36 years old. Donald pushed towards machining and getting a RoboDrill so that Harris Manufacturing could provide more value adding services to their customers. Harris Manufacturing moved to turning work to support the needs of their sister company, Regal Vise. The company then started taking on more work for this equipment to fill capacity and continuing with this methodology, they continued to expand into what Harris is today.

Through the countless hours of technical work, research and development, product design, sales, and budgeting, Donald has put everything he has into Harris Manufacturing. His wife and all of his daughters worked at the business at some point. Growing up he told his daughters that the best thing he could do was teach them a strong work ethic. While other kids were doing yardwork, his were working in assembly or the machine shop. In June of 2023 we celebrated his 50th anniversary at Harris Manufacturing. Harris Manufacturing wouldn’t be where it is today without his dedication and leadership to the company, its customers, and employees.