DI V ER S I F I CAT ION
Harriett's Energy Solutions
This New Jersey company takes diversification to a whole new level BY K E I T H RE ID
F From left to right: Bob Harriett Jr., Ann Harriett, Bonnie Harriett and Jack Crosby
OR THREE GENERATIONS—FOUR IF YOU COUNT THE CONVENIENCE store James Harriett opened to start it all—Harriett's Energy Solutions has been serving its customers in the
Medford, N.J. area. The quality and reliability of that service have remained constant during that time. Not so the product and service offerings, which have been added and maintained to promote diversification. In 1929 George W. Harriett took over the family convenience
store and expanded it into Harriett's Oil Service. At the time it included a garage to repair trucks and cars, and a gas station. He added kerosene delivery with a truck fitted with a 550-gallon tank and 5-gallon buckets to fill customers' tanks. This readily expanded into heating oil deliveries as the shift began around that time, for those that could afford it, away from coal heat. The business moved into the next generation when G. Robert
"Bob" Harriett and his brother-in-law Leonard Dickson took over in 1952. Dickson had served in the Navy in World War II and Harriett served in the Air Force during the Korean War. Dickson would retire in 1966 and Harriett drove the operations until his unexpected death in 1989. His tenure marked a dynamic phase for the enterprise. "The company had delivered oil since the 1930s, but that side
of the business really took off in the 1960s when my father really began to grow the business," said Bob Harriett, Jr., the company's current president. "He was fresh and new and the area was grow- ing and he had a lot of ambition." The company maintains a strong oil business today with seven
delivery trucks serving customers in Burlington County and parts of Camden and Ocean. Part of that expansion involved moving from using outside
contractors for the heating appliance installation and service to taking that in-house.
THE FIRST PUSH FOR DIVERSIFICATION Bob Harriett Sr. also began the push for diversification though as the company history to this point shows, the previous generations had been more than open to new opportunities as they became apparent such as moving into heating oil sales.
16 MAY 2012 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com "With the oil embargo, the 1970s were tough and my father
was looking for ways to diversify for revenue purposes," said Harriett. "We got into air-conditioning in the early 1970s, and
