John Murdoch Harbert III (July 19, 1921 – March 31, 1995) was an American businessman. He is best known for building his international construction company,

Harbert Corporation Harbert Management Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, is a United States, U.S. investment management company founded in 1993 by Raymond J. Harbert. Overview The company has Investment fund, investment funds in nine a ...

, into one of the world's largest, along with creating a personal wealth of well over $1.7 billion. Harbert lived with his wife Marguerite in the

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, Alabama suburb of Mountain Brook. John is also the older brother of late Birmingham businessman Bill L. Harbert, who was a co-founder of Harbert Corp. and who headed up the company's international operations. In 1993 Harbert Corp. sold its international construction division to Bill. Today the company's former international construction division is known as

B.L. Harbert International B.L. Harbert International, LLC, is a construction company based in Birmingham, Alabama, that was founded in 2000 by Billy L. Harbert, as a division of Harbert Corporation. B.L. Harbert has two main operating divisions, the U.S. Division and the ...

and is run by Bill's son Billy.

Life

Harbert served as a private in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II.Ref
He received a degree in

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

from

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

in 1946. In 1949, he founded the Harbert Corporation. The company main business was its domestic and international construction unit, which at the time was one of the largest in the country. In the early 1990s the company sold its domestic construction operation. It also sold its international construction division around the same time to John's brother Bill L. Harbert, which today is known as B.L. Harbert International. Other company subsidiaries engaged in mining,

pipeline Pipeline may refer to: Electronics, computers and computing * Pipeline (computing), a chain of data-processing stages or a CPU optimization found on ** Instruction pipelining, a technique for implementing instruction-level parallelism within a s ...

development, land development,

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

quarrying, road construction. Harbert projects are numerous in Alabama, but the company had many projects in the Middle East as well. In metro Birmingham, Harbert's best known projects include the

Elton B. Stephens Expressway The Elton B. Stephens Expressway, more commonly referred to locally as the Red Mountain Expressway, is a limited-access freeway serving as a north–south Connector (road), connection between Homewood, Alabama, Homewood and Mountain Brook, Alaba ...

(also called the Red Mountain Expressway, U.S. Highway 280), the Riverchase planned community, the accompanying

Riverchase Galleria Riverchase Galleria, locally known as The Galleria, is a large, super–regional shopping mall and mixed use development in Hoover, Alabama, in the Greater Birmingham metropolitan area. It is ranked 43rd on the list of largest shopping malls in t ...

, the state's largest shopping center, and the

Regions-Harbert Plaza The Regions-Harbert Plaza is a 32-story, office building in Birmingham, Alabama. Originally known as the AmSouth-Harbert Plaza, it was renamed on July 13, 2007, after AmSouth Bancorporation - the building's largest tenant - merged with Birmingham ...

. A lengthy section of

Interstate 459 Interstate 459 (I-459) is a bypass highway of I-59 that is an alternate Interstate Highway around the southern sides of Birmingham, Bessemer, and several other cities and towns in Jefferson County, Alabama. I-459 lies entirely within Jeffe ...

, the belt highway around the south side of metro Birmingham, is named for Harbert. Harbert was a noted philanthropist, with numerous contributions to Auburn University and to Birmingham-Southern College, where a building bears his wife's name. Harbert was married to the former Marguerite "Wita" Jones. The couple had three children, John Murdoch IV, Raymond, and Marguerite. John Harbert died on March 31, 1995. He was friends with

T. Boone Pickens Thomas Boone Pickens Jr. (May 22, 1928 – September 11, 2019) was an American business magnate and financier. Pickens chaired the hedge fund BP Capital Management. He was a well-known takeover operator and corporate raider during the 1980 ...

, and at one time was his business partner. His company continues to this day under the leadership of his son Raymond and operates under the name

Harbert Management Corporation Harbert Management Corporation, based in Birmingham, Alabama, is a U.S. investment management company founded in 1993 by Raymond J. Harbert. Overview The company has investment funds in nine alternative asset classes in three areas of concentra ...

Books

* ''John M. Harbert III: Marching to the Beat of a Different Drummer,'' () by Leah Rawls Atkins, Tarva House, Birmingham, Alabama (1999)

References

External links

Harbert Realty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harbert, John M. 1921 births 1995 deaths American billionaires 20th-century American businesspeople People from Greenville, Mississippi People from Mountain Brook, Alabama Auburn University alumni United States Army soldiers United States Army personnel of World War II Harbert family