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

and gave Bechtel, as chairman, controlling interest in the BechtelMcCone Corporation-rented a suite of offices in downtown Los Angeles and in May 1937, proclaimed themselves in business. It was not a two-man operation. W ith him, McCone had brought some of the technical talent BechtelMcCone was going to need to survive-most notably, John C. Byrne, an MITeducated Consolidated veteran, who was charged with handling the new company’s cost and production estimates. Other key players came from Bechtel, including J. Perry Yates, a former Six Companies and 53

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W A. Bechtel field engineer. At BechtelMcCone, Yates was initially put in charge of coordinating the work of the engineering, construction and purchasing departments; eventually, he became a senior vicepresident and director of the company. Later, his son Alden went to work for Bechtel as well, and in 1982 he succeeded George Shultz as the Bechtel Group’s president. Two other crucial hires were V G. “Heine”

Hindmarsh, a longtime engineering and construction manager (he specialized in building refineries), who brought with him a number of superintendents, foremen and mechanics; and Ralph M. Parsons, a former aeronautical engineer and naval officer, boss of his own Chicago-based engineering firm and holder of a number of patents covering various refinery processes and equipment.

As the corporate team was being put together, Bechtel and McCone began calling on their friends in the oil industry, sounding them out on their “full-service” concept. The response was overwhelmingly positive; but for all the good wishes, no contracts were offered. Steve, however, had a card to play. In the spring of 193 7, while McCone was winding up his affairs as Consolidated’s executive vicepresident, he and his brother Ken had approached Standard Oil of California about building part or all of a new refinery the company was planning at Richmond, California. It was complicated work, and given Bechtel’s limited experience, Socal had been reluctant. Steve, however, had finally persuaded Socal to part with a portion of the contract. “Give us that work on any kind of basis and we’ll show y ou we know what the hell we’re doing,” he had told him. “Let us prove ourselves. “13

Prove himself Bechtel had, and by late summer 1937, work on the project was nearing completion, under budget and ahead of schedule.

Impressed, Socal gave BechtelMcCone a contract to build even more of the refinery. Steve was ecstatic. “We’ll go to Richmond and build the refinery for nothing!”14 he facetiously promised Socal. Of course, it was not for nothing. It was, for BechtelMcCone, a multimillion-dollar contract, and the beginning of a long string of refinery construction for Socal and its competitors, in the country and out of it.

Ralph Parsons was to play a vital role in the early years of BechtelMcCone, and in recognition of his contributions, he was made a principal in the company-retitled the BechtelMcCone-Parsons Corporation-in 1938. In 1944, however, after a series of personality clashes between Parsons and McCone, Bechtel and McCone effectively dumped him. After selling his shares back to the firm, he went on to form the Pasadena, California-based Parsons Corporation, which in later years, became one of Bechtel’s chief competitors.

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STEVE

By 1939, BechtelMcCone had mushroomed into an organization with more than 10,000 employees and was building refineries, chemical plants and pipelines from Montana to Venezuela. “We will build anything, any place, any time,” Bechtel crowed. “The bigger, the tougher the job, the better we like it. “15

He would soon be called on to make good his pledge. War had come to Europe, and the world