Sidney Harman

Sidney Harman (August 4, 1918 – April 12, 2011) was a Canadian-born American engineer and businessman active in education, government, industry, and publishing. He was the Chairman Emeritus of Harman International Industries, Inc. A co-founder of Harman Kardon, he also served as the U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce in 1977 and 1978. Late in his life, Harman was also the publisher of Newsweek, having purchased the magazine for one dollar in 2010.

Early life

Harman was born in Montreal, Canada to a Jewish family and raised in New York City. Harman's father worked at a hearing aid company in New York.

Career

After graduating with a physics degree Sidney's first job was at the David Bogen Company as an engineer. His boss was Bernard Kardon, and roughly thirteen years later each invested $5,000 to make the Festival D1000, the world's first integrated hi-fi receiver. Harman and Kardon founded Harman Kardon in 1953. He was known for the quality of working life programs that he initiated at the company’s plants, especially for the program at Bolivar, Tennessee, which had some short-lived success and has become a model for such activities in American industry and a principal case study at business schools in the United States and abroad. Harman had written on productivity, quality of working life and economic policy, and was co-author, with Daniel Yankelovich, of Starting With the People, published by Houghton Mifflin in 1988.