Geothermal projects help St. Paul-based Harris Cos. grow

The engineer who runs one of the Midwest's biggest mechanical contractors chuckles when critics equate "green" and "sustainable" with tree-hugging liberalism.

"It's something that's been slow to catch on in our industry," conceded Greg Hosch, CEO of St. Paul-based Harris Cos. "But it's also the right thing to do, to help people to pay for projects out of energy savings in the long run. And we make money at it."

Moreover, Harris weathered the Great Recession better than its competitors. And it has a record backlog of jobs for the next 18 months.

In an industry where the slump in commercial construction cut worker hours nearly in half between the first quarter of 2007 and the depths of 2009, Harris saw its revenue dip by only 15 percent last year, to about $170 million.

Harris expects to increase employment by 15 percent this year to more than 800 in several states and is anticipating revenue growth through 2011.

"Harris has a good reputation," said Steve Pettersen, executive vice president of the Minnesota Mechanical Contractors Association. "They've been flexible, diversified geographically and they've got good management, good project managers and great field foremen ... the pipefitters, plumbers and sheet-metal workers who run the jobs and make things work."

Hosch, 39, also attributes the firm's good health to winning some federal projects that sustained Harris during the commercial-building slump.

PHC News, a plumbing-industry trade publication, named Harris as its contractor of the year in 2009 largely because it is plowing new ground with customers through "innovative, responsible solutions" that include tapping the energy of the sun and the Earth's natural heating and cooling systems.

That particularly makes sense in fossil-fuel-poor Minnesota.

For example, Harris has developed a specialty in refurbishing energy-sucking municipal ice arenas into more efficient buildings where the heating and cooling is generated from ambient energy tapped a few hundred feet below ground. Harris is the parent company of Trak International, which through its GeoExchange business retrofits arenas, as well as schools, medical facilities and factories, and guarantees the energy and operating savings sufficient to pay for the work over 10 to 20 years.

"Harris also helped us get a 50 percent grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for about $1.4 million," said Cheryl Mesko, operations chief of the Eagan Parks and Recreation department. "The geothermal cost is roughly $2.7 million and we added the replacement of the west rink, one of two ice surfaces, which took the total project up to about $3.19 million. The arena is borrowing from the city and will pay it back with interest over 20 years out of energy savings and arena revenue."

Harris also has completed municipal arena projects in Woodbury and St. Cloud.

Hosch points to a signature solar-energy project at St. Joseph's Church in Rosemount that has growing implications for small commercial buildings. At St. Joseph's, two 60-ton water-to-water hydronic heat pumps provide simultaneous heating and cooling. A heat pump provides hot water. Both heat pumps get their energy from 40 solar panels.

Waste to energy

Several years ago, Harris and a technology partner designed and built a system that turns the syrupy waste byproduct of the 45 million-gallon ethanol plant in Winnebago, Minn., into a fuel that powers the plant and reduces emissions. The system payback is less than three years in energy savings.

"An ethanol plant can't get a loan today, but eventually that will be a growth business," Hosch predicted.

The modern-day Harris began in 1983, when Bob Hosch, a pipe fitter, and others bought Harris Plumbing & Heating from its retiring owner.

Other local recent projects include TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota, Children's Hospital in Minneapolis and St. Joseph's Hospital in St. Paul.

PHC News ranks Harris as the nation's 17th-largest mechanical contractor.