Van Harden is known nationally for his creative broadcasting career and inventions. Through his twenty-seven years as program director of WHO radio in Des Moines, the station has been awarded thirteen national Marconi Awards, five of which he has received personally for his own morning radio program, which he has hosted for those entire twenty-seven years. He has also owned a radio station and hosted a TV show, but more important to Van has been his thirty years as an adult Bible teacher. He has taught and spoken in many churches and denominations, but has always insisted on teaching straight out of the Bible, which he calls "our owner's manual." He and his wife Denise have three grown children, five grandchildren and live in his childhood home in Iowa.