George Fraser founded Garnet Instruments in 1993 out of a garage on Garnet Ave., which is how the liquid management solutions company got its name.
Fraser partnered with someone who needed transport equipment for vehicles like fuel haulers. Together, they developed a transport line of products, the first of which were truck gauges. Fraser sent his first sales team to the U.S. to market the products.
“The very first sales team was a husband-and-wife combo who traveled in a fifth wheel,” said Pete Pennington, Garnet’s U.S. operations manager. “They discovered the holding tank monitors were terrible.” Fraser’s solution was Garnet’s introduction to the RV industry. He developed his first holding tank monitor in 1998. Today, Garnet has sold almost 300,000 systems.
Over time, Garnet’s products evolved to include overfill protection systems. Pennington said shifts like these came from listening to the needs of customers, who complained about spilling crude oil or chemicals on the ground.
Although 30 percent of Garnet’s transport, storage and associated measuring systems is dedicated to the RV industry, the supplier also handles oil, gas, wastewater, grease and sewage transportation. The concept is the same across all industries, but the technology is different.
“George has always wanted Garnet to be flexible,” Pennington said. “We are trying to get away from saying, “it is an RV gauge.’ Instead, it is a holding tank gauge.”
“The RV market has spilled over into marine applications with house boats that have plastic holding tanks,” Pennington said. Garnet uses similar holding tank technology in tiny homes, portable restrooms and even ice houses built for fishermen.
“It applies to many different industries, but the general technology George developed has maintained the same foundation,” Pennington said. “He has just refined the process over the years, and he is looking to customers for what they want.”
Today, Garnet’s best-selling RV holding tank is the 709P3 model. “The P3 has become more popular because there is not an LPG function, and most RVs are now electric. It gives customers battery voltage, plus displays the level of fresh, gray, and black tanks”
