Background
Warren A. Bechtel was born September 12, 1872, eldest child of Elizabeth and John Moyer Bechtel, in Freeport, Illinois.
Warren A. Bechtel was born September 12, 1872, eldest child of Elizabeth and John Moyer Bechtel, in Freeport, Illinois.
He worked as an employee of the burgeoning United States railroad industry in 1898 after his Oklahoma cattle ranch failed. Over the next 20 years, Bechtel built a sizable contracting business that specialized in railroad and highway building. One of Bechtel"s earliest major contracts was grading the site of the Oroville, California depot for the Western Pacific Railroad, then under construction.
In 1925, Bechtel"s sons Warren Junior., Stephen, and Ken joined him and incorporated as West.A. Bechtel Company.
The firm would later help engineer the famous Hoover Dam over the Colorado River, still considered the largest civil engineering project in United States. history. Death Bechtel died of an accidental insulin overdose while visiting Moscow in 1933.
Today, the Bechtel Corporation is still owned and operated by the Bechtel family. Its current Chief Executive Officer is Riley P. Bechtel, one of the richest men in the United States.