Mr. Joseph Harmon, Minister of State
Mr. Joseph Harmon. was born and raised in the West Demerara village of Pouderoyen and completed his schooling on the West Demerara before qualifying to do his ‘A‘ Levels at Queen‘s College. However, because of his circumstances he was unable to take up the opportunity and instead was forced to find employment. He worked for about a year in the Geddes Grant motor sales department before enlisting for the Officer Cadet course in the Guyana Defence Force, where he rose from the rank of Second Lieutenant following his graduation, to Lieutenant Colonel at the time of his retirement.
He applied for early retirement from the army as he wanted to do something else. During his years in the army, Mr Harmon took advantage of all the training it provided, including travelling widely in and out of Guyana and in his later years he also made use of the opportunity afforded to officers to further their studies while still serving. He completed his law degree at Cave Hill in Barbados before attending the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad. On completion of his law studies he served for some time in the army’s legal services department, where he was the Commanding Officer and where he did some prosecution work.
After twenty-three years in the Guyana Defence Force and another 15 years as a lawyer in private practice, Mr. Harmon remained an active politician and was a new face in the Tenth Sitting of the National Assembly, serving as APNU’s Shadow Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure.
In his early days, Mr. Harmon was a member of the Young Socialist Movement (YSM), the youth arm of the PNC, and at one time he was the Chairman of the Pouderoyen YSM group. He later became a Member of the Regional Executive of the movement. During his army days, Mr. Harmon ‘eased up’ in his involvement in politics, but by 2010, he resumed ‘full scale politics and was the Returning Officer for the elections at the Party’s Biennial Congresses.
Mr. Harmon is married with six children
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