Friends in High Places: The Bechtel Story : The Most Secret Corporation and How It Engineered the Wo by Laton Mccartney (readict .txt) 📗

THE NEXT GENERATION

whom I personally knew,” Bechtel went on. “I wanted them to help us digest some of the big experiences and advise us on future conditions in the economic, political, social and technological fields. “9

Meeting with Bechtel every few months, the counselors advised Steve junior to take various cost-cutting measures-most notably, to unload Dillon, Read, which Bechtel sold off in 1986. They also urged Bechtel’s chairman to diversify and scale down the company’s executive hierarchy, so that the firm would be more responsive and better able to pursue new customers. Another important piece of advice was for Bechtel to pursue jobs that only a few y ears before would have been brushed off as too small. That Bechtel was taking the suggestions seriously was apparent from the jobs the company began to go after, and win-from a $900,000 concrete-pouring project in Michigan to a $3.5

million waste-energy plant in Florida to a $2 5 million highway project in Turkey.

Under prodding from the counselors, Bechtel also began capitalizing on resources it already owned. A leading case in point was a $150

million micrographic facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland, erected by Bechtel Power to store and process records for nuclear plants. With the collapse of the nuclear power industry, the facility seemed in jeopardy, and with it, Bechtel’s entire investment. Instead, Bechtel made the best of a bad situation by winning a contract from the Securities and Exchange Commission to use Gaithersburg to process all the SEC’s documents. Estimated yearly income to Bechtel: $23 million. Proclaiming the company leaner, meaner and hungrier, a Bechtel executive told The Wall Street Journal: “If there’s no project, we’ll try to find one. If there’s no client, we’ll try to assemble one. If there’s no money, we’ll get them some. “10

By the end of 1986, when the company reported income of $6. 5

billion, it appeared that the worst for Bechtel was over. Though revenues hadn’t yet begun to turn around, they had a least stabilized at their 1985 levels. “Our business has had its ups and downs,” Steve junior told a gathering of company employees on St. Patrick’s Day 1987. “But don’t be disillusioned. We are operating in the blackmany of our competitors aren’t-and we are financially sound. I am confident that we will come out of these tough times stronger than before. “11 Looking uncharacteristically drawn and tired, the Bechtel chairman added a cautionary note. “We’ve got to put more emphasis on marketing, on strategic planning, on business management,” he said. “We need to get back to the attitudes and work practices of twenty 233

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

years ago. That means less formality, more flexibility, more of a ‘cando’ attitude, more speed and responsiveness, more teamwork. “12

Managing a smile, Steve junior then called for questions. “Is the Bechtel family thinking of getting out of the business?” an employee asked, referring to rumors that the Bechtels were considering selling the company.

“That’s the last thing in our minds,” Steve junior answered emphatically. “My first love is the engineering and construction business, and even when the time comes for me to step out of the line-a few years from now, when I’m sixty-five-I plan to still be around and active and helpful to the extent that I can be. At the age of eight-six, my dad still comes into the office every day, and I intend to do likewise. “13

A final question: “Is 1987 the bottom?”

“I hope so and I think so,” said the chairman, the tightness showing in his voice. “I’m more confident than I have been in recent years.”14

With his company seemingly righted, Steve junior increasingly began looking to the future. As he had noted to his employees, he was nearing Bechtel’s