Remembering Vic Harrison

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our Founder and Chairman, Vic Harrison.

Victor (“Vic”) Harrison retired in June 2021 after 21 years as Managing Director and Founder of Integrator Housing Solutions, leaving the firm he founded in the capable hands of his son Paul Harrison as Director of Energy and daughter-in-law Helen Harrison as Managing Director.

His career in the building and energy efficiency arena included periods with Bovis and Federated Homes as well as building a house of his own through the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and running his own well-established firm of builders in England and Portugal.

Vic was involved in the early stages of the energy efficiency industry and was one of the first people in the country to become a qualified NHER Energy Assessor for new build houses and then a qualified energy assessor with Starpoint in Bristol.

He volunteered to help the National Energy Foundation set up as a charity in the early 1990s and was uniquely placed given his experience on building sites, the nitty gritty of housebuilding, and to liaise with the qualified academics working for the Foundation.

Vic was soon officially brought on board and travelled the country giving talks at conferences and to local authorities across the UK and introducing builders, developers, councillors and even government ministers to the newly developed Standard Assessment Procedures (SAP) software.

As one of the most knowledgeable people in the whole country about this new way of building, Vic appeared on the BBC and ITV several times and even Ukrainian television. He was invited to visit the houses of editors of the main daily papers to carry out energy ratings, resulting in articles in the Times, Telegraph and Daily Mirror as well as giving talks to government ministers on the subject.

In 2005 Vic’s business, ECMK became one of the first five in the country to be given a licence under the new accreditation scheme for energy assessors, and in 2007 started running training courses for the SAP qualification. At this time the company had 32 staff, and trained and qualified over 2,000 energy assessors.

The software Vic developed with Alan Horton, and its later iterations, are at the heart of heart of Integrator Housing Solutions, encompassing asset management, survey and energy efficiency software for Housing Associations.

Vic was a natural entrepreneur, led into every new initiative with his mantra, “Positive thinking is absolutely key.”

He will be greatly missed.