People-focused CEO and chairman of Lakeland fertilizer company dies

Polk County entrepreneur Jack Harrell Jr., CEO of Harrell’s, died in his home in Lakeland on July 13 after a battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor. Harrell was 68. He received his diagnosis six months ago.

Harrell’s, a 500-employee manufacturing company focused on fertilizer and turf maintenance chemicals, was founded by Harrell's grandparents Ormond and Lucille Harrell in Lakeland in 1941. It started as a feed store and grew to multiple locations before pivoting from retail to manufacturing in 1985 under Harrell's leadership. 

Harrell, a Lakeland native born in 1956, joined the company in 1978 after earning his business management degree from Georgia Southern, according to his official obituary. He was officially appointed CEO in 2000. He leaves a legacy of people-first business strategies, according to those who knew him best.

“The biggest thing that he instilled in everyone was taking care of people,” says his son Jack Harrell III, who is president and COO of the company. “And that starts with our employees.”

Harrell III joined the company in 2009 and became COO in 2023. 

“He took care of people, he gathered people,” Harrell III says. “He was able to get people to buy into what we were doing from all different walks of life from all areas of the country. And I just think that's something that not everybody has the ability to do.”

One of Harrell's people-focused initiatives was leading an effort to make the company employee-owned through an ESOP (Employee stock option plan) in 2016. The goal: gaining employee buy-in for business outcomes. 

Harrell and his wife, Tina, were also known for their philanthropy in the Lakeland community. In August 2022, after a contribution for an undisclosed amount from the Harrells. construction was completed on an 80,000 square-foot, 96-bed facility at Lakeland Regional Health named the Harrell Family Center for Behavioral Wellness. 

“Jack and Tina recognized the need in their community for more people to have access to state-of-the-art health care, and to erase the stigma surrounding mental illness by helping more people to be treated,” Mike Hess, content specialist at Harrell’s says in a statement. 

In addition, in 2018, a gift of an undisclosed amount funded the Jack and Tina Harrell Institute for Advanced Cardiovascular Medicine, which focuses on cardiovascular surgery, stroke care and interventional care, to name a few. 

Harrell was a member of Christ Community Presbyterian Church and served on several boards including Salvation Army, Youth for Christ and Parker Street Ministries, according to his obituary. 

He was the recipient of several awards including the Marie Roberts Lifetime Service Award from the Florida Golf Course Superintendents Association and Advocate of the Year by Lakeland Regional Health. 

“The sweetest part of the last six months after he got diagnosed was was seeing all the people come by, call him, text him, email him and just talk about how he impacted their life,” Harrell III says. “And he's far too humble, to take credit for any of that. But as the bystanding son, it was just a sweet thing to see that. You know, he touched so many lives and that's the intangible part that I think will be hard to replace really quickly.”

Although no decisions are set regarding the future of leadership at the company, Harrell III insists the core values that comprise the fabric of Harrell’s will live on. “The culture that was set by my great grandfather and my grandfather and now my father, is the one constant that will always remain unchanged.”