| George Harding American Entrepreneur |
History of George Harding, founder of PolyJohn, considered to be an
early manufacturer of portable restrooms in the United States
early manufacturer of portable restrooms in the United States
The Sanitation Journal is a monthly trade publication that caters to the portable restroom industry. Each month
thousands of portable restroom operators utilize information from the Journal to aid in business decisions.
Subscribe today and make sure you never miss an issue.
thousands of portable restroom operators utilize information from the Journal to aid in business decisions.
Subscribe today and make sure you never miss an issue.
By Faye Kelley and Loraine Hanson of PolyJohn Enterprises
Almost everyone who has been in the portable restroom business for more than a decade has a story about George
Harding, founder of PolyJohn Enterprises Corporation. Many people remember him as a soft-spoken, friendly old
man who drove around the country in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo pulling a portable toilet trailer. He was charming,
polite and genuinely loved meeting people. An old-school gentleman, he always stood up when a lady entered the
room, and he always wore a suit jacket and tie. One thing people always remember about his wardrobe was the
color of his shirt and tie. He always wore a golden tie and a Caribbean-blue shirt. To find his special color of
blue, he had to special order his shirts by the dozen. Today, that special shade of blue is still PolyJohn’s company
color.
He always demanded that we refer to him as George, never Mr. Harding (he said his father was Mr. Harding).
Because he was so down to Earth, he was the consummate salesman and service provider for the portable
restroom business.
He visited and made instant friends with thousands of operators in almost every city in America and Canada. One
such acquaintance was Ed Cooper, now President of PolyJohn, who was running a waste hauling business in
Hammond, IN, when he first met George.
“We had just begun to diversify our business with a few portable restrooms. George called on me one day before
lunch and we ended up spending the entire day talking together. By late that evening, my partner, George Hiskes,
and I had become partners with George Harding. That was the day we started PolyJohn-Harding was extremely
persuasive,” said Cooper.
Together, Harding, Cooper and Hiskes bought a plastics manufacturing company on an Indian reservation in
Canada named Rama Plastics. That is where they first started manufacturing PolyJohns.
That’s how Harding helped start PolyJohn in 1984. What people don’t know is that Harding was a man that made
history in almost everything he did. He spent just a little more than 20 years in the portable restroom business. The
other seven decades of his life were even more fascinating.
We’ll quit as soon as it stops being fun!
One thing he always said to us was, “We’ll quit when it stops being fun.” To George, “fun” was starting new
companies. After eight years with PolyJohn, we were no longer a small start-up. We had become an industry
leader and a thriving enterprise. That’s when George got the itch to do something new again. In 1992, he sold his
shares in PolyJohn and left for Oregon to start a new wastewater treatment company; by then, he was in his late
80’s.
He had fun running that new business until the end of his life, November 7, 1998. According to the stories he told
his friends at PolyJohn, he had spent a lifetime building interesting businesses, then selling his shares when the
company became successful and a new interest caught his attention.
While the stories he told are not documented, his friends remember them through George’s own vivid
recollections. His life reads like a storybook for American entrepreneurs.
George grew up in elite surroundings and lacked for nothing as a child. His father had been a successful real estate
developer, and was able to provide his children with the finest education and an entry into the country club set of
Dearborn, MI, in the 1920’s. George met socially with the children of the Fords, the Chryslers, and many others
of Detroit’s wealthy elite. That’s where he met and married his lifelong companion, Bonnie Seagram. An heir of
the Seagram Distillery fortune, Bonnie was a socialite who had once dated Henry Ford II.
George started his career with General Motors and rose through the executive ranks to become one of the top
managers answering directly to the company president, Alfred P. Sloan. Harding was chosen by Sloan to build new
manufacturing facilities for GM overseas. He helped develop new manufacturing divisions in South America and
Europe before World War II.
Sloan was famous for developing his managers and giving them a great deal of autonomy to run their own business
divisions within GM. Sloan would set the goals and managers would be left to themselves to decide how best to
achieve them. This management style created a dynamic, entrepreneurial atmosphere at GM and is credited with
helping the company surpass Ford as the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Harding learned this
management style from Sloan and used the lessons throughout his life. PolyJohn was set up in the Sloan mold,
with regional representatives who are not just company salesmen, but semi-autonomous business managers.
During the war, George played an important role in the U.S. War Department as a senior official in the Department
of Strategic Metals where he worked with Henry J. Kaiser in building the Liberty Ships. George often recalled the
time he had dinner with Winston Churchill.
After the war, George began to follow his dreams by building his own company. He claimed to have been involved
in over 30 corporations in his lifetime as either sole owner or controlling owner. His first venture was to form a
metal plating business that sold metal parts to GM and other automotive businesses. In an interesting side venture
during the 1950’s, he became interested in underwater diving and began some pioneering work in underwater
photography that lead to a joint venture with Walt Disney.
He had been so successful in the ’50s that he sold his businesses and retired to Florida in 1960 at the age of 56. He
bought a 56’ power yacht and began enjoying himself in a life of leisure. After about six months, he got bored or it
wasn’t fun anymore. Then, one day he saw a friend die from a heart attack and he vowed never to retire again.
He went looking for a new business. He called on some contacts he had known in the boating industry with whom
his metal-plating business had sold stainless steel railings and accessories. It was the early 60’s and he was starting
on the ground floor of another new type of business, the fiberglass boat industry. It was while he was in the
boating industry that he first began experimenting with plastic forms that lead to his patents in plastic portable
restrooms.
The oil embargo in the early 70’s lead to a crash in the fiberglass boat industry, but George was already marketing
his new invention, polyethylene portable restrooms.
Without his determination and leadership, the portable restroom business wouldn’t be the international, billion-dollar
business that it is today. George was a founding member of the PSAI (Portable Sanitation Association
International), he held numerous patents on plastic toilet designs, many of which are still in use today. He started
one of the most innovative companies in the business, and he helped popularize plastic restrooms through his
untiring salesmanship. For his efforts, he was honored in 1993 with the Andy Gump Award for a lifetime of
achievement in our industry.
After leaving PolyJohn, he was made chairman emeritus of the company. He stopped in to see how we were doing
every now and then, wearing his bright blue shirt and his even brighter smile. His wife, Bonnie, called us with the
news that he had passed on in 1998. We all miss George at PolyJohn and in the industry as well. But we know that
somehow, somewhere, George is still having fun doing what he loves best, working as the angel of new and
innovative companies.
Harding, founder of PolyJohn Enterprises Corporation. Many people remember him as a soft-spoken, friendly old
man who drove around the country in his Chevrolet Monte Carlo pulling a portable toilet trailer. He was charming,
polite and genuinely loved meeting people. An old-school gentleman, he always stood up when a lady entered the
room, and he always wore a suit jacket and tie. One thing people always remember about his wardrobe was the
color of his shirt and tie. He always wore a golden tie and a Caribbean-blue shirt. To find his special color of
blue, he had to special order his shirts by the dozen. Today, that special shade of blue is still PolyJohn’s company
color.
He always demanded that we refer to him as George, never Mr. Harding (he said his father was Mr. Harding).
Because he was so down to Earth, he was the consummate salesman and service provider for the portable
restroom business.
He visited and made instant friends with thousands of operators in almost every city in America and Canada. One
such acquaintance was Ed Cooper, now President of PolyJohn, who was running a waste hauling business in
Hammond, IN, when he first met George.
“We had just begun to diversify our business with a few portable restrooms. George called on me one day before
lunch and we ended up spending the entire day talking together. By late that evening, my partner, George Hiskes,
and I had become partners with George Harding. That was the day we started PolyJohn-Harding was extremely
persuasive,” said Cooper.
Together, Harding, Cooper and Hiskes bought a plastics manufacturing company on an Indian reservation in
Canada named Rama Plastics. That is where they first started manufacturing PolyJohns.
That’s how Harding helped start PolyJohn in 1984. What people don’t know is that Harding was a man that made
history in almost everything he did. He spent just a little more than 20 years in the portable restroom business. The
other seven decades of his life were even more fascinating.
We’ll quit as soon as it stops being fun!
One thing he always said to us was, “We’ll quit when it stops being fun.” To George, “fun” was starting new
companies. After eight years with PolyJohn, we were no longer a small start-up. We had become an industry
leader and a thriving enterprise. That’s when George got the itch to do something new again. In 1992, he sold his
shares in PolyJohn and left for Oregon to start a new wastewater treatment company; by then, he was in his late
80’s.
He had fun running that new business until the end of his life, November 7, 1998. According to the stories he told
his friends at PolyJohn, he had spent a lifetime building interesting businesses, then selling his shares when the
company became successful and a new interest caught his attention.
While the stories he told are not documented, his friends remember them through George’s own vivid
recollections. His life reads like a storybook for American entrepreneurs.
George grew up in elite surroundings and lacked for nothing as a child. His father had been a successful real estate
developer, and was able to provide his children with the finest education and an entry into the country club set of
Dearborn, MI, in the 1920’s. George met socially with the children of the Fords, the Chryslers, and many others
of Detroit’s wealthy elite. That’s where he met and married his lifelong companion, Bonnie Seagram. An heir of
the Seagram Distillery fortune, Bonnie was a socialite who had once dated Henry Ford II.
George started his career with General Motors and rose through the executive ranks to become one of the top
managers answering directly to the company president, Alfred P. Sloan. Harding was chosen by Sloan to build new
manufacturing facilities for GM overseas. He helped develop new manufacturing divisions in South America and
Europe before World War II.
Sloan was famous for developing his managers and giving them a great deal of autonomy to run their own business
divisions within GM. Sloan would set the goals and managers would be left to themselves to decide how best to
achieve them. This management style created a dynamic, entrepreneurial atmosphere at GM and is credited with
helping the company surpass Ford as the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Harding learned this
management style from Sloan and used the lessons throughout his life. PolyJohn was set up in the Sloan mold,
with regional representatives who are not just company salesmen, but semi-autonomous business managers.
During the war, George played an important role in the U.S. War Department as a senior official in the Department
of Strategic Metals where he worked with Henry J. Kaiser in building the Liberty Ships. George often recalled the
time he had dinner with Winston Churchill.
After the war, George began to follow his dreams by building his own company. He claimed to have been involved
in over 30 corporations in his lifetime as either sole owner or controlling owner. His first venture was to form a
metal plating business that sold metal parts to GM and other automotive businesses. In an interesting side venture
during the 1950’s, he became interested in underwater diving and began some pioneering work in underwater
photography that lead to a joint venture with Walt Disney.
He had been so successful in the ’50s that he sold his businesses and retired to Florida in 1960 at the age of 56. He
bought a 56’ power yacht and began enjoying himself in a life of leisure. After about six months, he got bored or it
wasn’t fun anymore. Then, one day he saw a friend die from a heart attack and he vowed never to retire again.
He went looking for a new business. He called on some contacts he had known in the boating industry with whom
his metal-plating business had sold stainless steel railings and accessories. It was the early 60’s and he was starting
on the ground floor of another new type of business, the fiberglass boat industry. It was while he was in the
boating industry that he first began experimenting with plastic forms that lead to his patents in plastic portable
restrooms.
The oil embargo in the early 70’s lead to a crash in the fiberglass boat industry, but George was already marketing
his new invention, polyethylene portable restrooms.
Without his determination and leadership, the portable restroom business wouldn’t be the international, billion-dollar
business that it is today. George was a founding member of the PSAI (Portable Sanitation Association
International), he held numerous patents on plastic toilet designs, many of which are still in use today. He started
one of the most innovative companies in the business, and he helped popularize plastic restrooms through his
untiring salesmanship. For his efforts, he was honored in 1993 with the Andy Gump Award for a lifetime of
achievement in our industry.
After leaving PolyJohn, he was made chairman emeritus of the company. He stopped in to see how we were doing
every now and then, wearing his bright blue shirt and his even brighter smile. His wife, Bonnie, called us with the
news that he had passed on in 1998. We all miss George at PolyJohn and in the industry as well. But we know that
somehow, somewhere, George is still having fun doing what he loves best, working as the angel of new and
innovative companies.
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