The Real Harris: Meet David Barnes

Tell us about your background. How did you get your start in construction/service/BAS? What drew you to the industry?

“My background is in retail, distribution, and consumer products companies.  I didn’t know anything about construction.  However, when I interviewed with Harris I was very impressed with the leadership and excited about how I could help the company grow!”

What drew you to Harris? What makes you stay?

“When I met the leadership team, I thought “I could really have fun with these people!”  While that has been true, I have continually been impressed with the respect for people and their opinions.”

What do you enjoy about working at Harris (what about the company itself made you want to work here)?

“First, it was the people.  It felt like a great fit of values of culture.  Second, the type of work Harris does is so diverse.  Every project, every service call can be so different and have a different set of opportunities and challenges.  I really like the challenge of that diversity.”

What is the best part about your position (the day-to-day, people, a special project you were involved with)?

“Part of the great thing about being in Finance is that you work with everyone across the company.  I love interreacting with all the different teams and learning how to better support the work getting done.”

What are some of the main responsibilities and initiatives that you lead?

” Being the CFO is a mixture of ensuring that the financials are accurate, the bills and team members are getting paid with looking forward to making sure that the company has the resources needed to continue to grow.  That includes things like the banking relationship, managing our insurance portfolio and currently, implementing the right financial systems.”

Focus is important. How do you handle external factors that affect the business? How do you prevent yourself from over or under reacting?

“I see my role as a steadying force within the organization.  It is important to ensure that we are doing the right things during good times or bad.  I really work to put things into perspective, so I don’t react on emotion.  I usually go for a run to work through those!!”

Looking ahead, what are some of the biggest opportunities for Harris? Business challenges?

“Certainly, we face a huge opportunity and challenge with updating the business systems.  We have been on the same system for 21 years and we need to move to a modern system that allows us to have better access to data, brings us more efficiencies and integrates across systems.”

What are you passionate about at work? What inspires you or motivates you?

“At the end of the day, it is really about the people.  I want to work with teams that are high performance, trust each other and have fun.  Life is too short to not have fun.”

What traits do you think are important for someone in your role to be successful?

“Integrity is so important.  Not only having integrity in the financials we prepare, but in the decisions, I make and the interactions with others.  In addition, you must see the big picture and how things fit together or should.  And be a heck of a problem solver!”

What keeps you up at night? 

“Usually, it is trying to juggle all the things that need to get done.  I try to plan things out, so I am prepared, but there are always things that come up at work or at home that cause you to reshuffle.  My mind is always running through lists and prioritizing.”

How do you like to re-charge?

“Exercise does it for me.  I enjoy running, biking, and swimming.  I try to do a marathon every year as well as triathlons.  In addition, we have horses and I like to work on projects around the barn and driving the Bobcat.”

What are you most proud of at Harris?

“The can-do attitude runs through everything.  Whether it is a particularly difficult project or customer issue or dealing with unforeseen issues or growth of the business.”

What is one thing Harris employees wouldn’t know about you?

“My first car was a 1965 Mustang that I bought for $500 and restored with my dad.  After that I restored a 1960 Austin-Healey.”

What do you wish the public knew about Harris?

“We have such a strong group of team members that really put their heart into everything they do.  People take such pride in their work and who they work with.  The culture is a strong reason we are so successful.”