Stephen Davison Bechtel (September 24, 1900 – March 14, 1989) was the son of Clara Alice West and

Warren A. Bechtel Warren Abraham Bechtel (September 12, 1872 – August 28, 1933) was the founder of the Bechtel Corporation, the 2nd largest construction company in the United States as of 2022. Early life Warren Abraham Bechtel was born on September 12, 1872, ...

, founder of the

Bechtel Corporation Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia. , the ''Engineering News-Record'' ranked Bechtel as the sec ...

. He was the president of the company from 1933 to 1960.

Early life

Stephen Davison Bechtel was born on September 24, 1900, in

Aurora, Illinois Aurora is a city in the Chicago metropolitan area located partially in DuPage County, Illinois, DuPage, Kane County, Illinois, Kane, Kendall County, Illinois, Kendall, and Will County, Illinois, Will counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Locat ...

. He grew up in construction camps, living with his father as he traveled to construction projects. He graduated from

Oakland Technical High School Oakland Technical High School, known locally as Oakland Tech or simply "Tech", is a public high school in Oakland, California, United States, and is operated under the jurisdiction of the Oakland Unified School District. It is one of six compre ...

in 1918, and served with the

20th Engineer Brigade The 20th Engineer Brigade is a combat engineer brigade assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps of the United States Army stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Although the brigade was identified as an airborne unit, not all of its subordinate un ...

, part of the

American Expeditionary Force The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alon ...

sent to assist

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In 1919, after the war, he attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

for one year and left to work for his father's company full-time. In 1923, Bechtel married Laura Adeline Peart, a

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

alumna, who would help her husband build the family-owned business into one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms.

Bechtel Company

In 1925,

, his sons Warren Jr, Stephen Sr,

Kenneth Kenneth is an English given name and surname. The name is an Anglicised form of two entirely different Gaelic personal names: ''Cainnech'' and '' Cináed''. The modern Gaelic form of ''Cainnech'' is ''Coinneach''; the name was derived from a byna ...

(Ken), and his brother Arthur (Art) joined to incorporate as ''W.A. Bechtel Company''. Stephen Sr. became vice-president of Bechtel in 1925. His father, Warren A. Bechtel, died suddenly while traveling to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in 1933. That came at a critical time for the company: concrete was being poured for the

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...

, Bechtel's largest project. Stephen became president in 1935 and saw the company through the construction of the dam. Over the next 30 years, Stephen expanded Bechtel into a huge and successful engineering company with operations all over the world. He handed the presidency of the company over to his son, Stephen Jr. in 1960 but stayed on as the chairman until 1969.

awarded Bechtel an honorary degree in Agricultural Science in 1954, and in 1980, it completed construction of the Bechtel Engineering Center, which was named in his honor. In 1976, Bechtel received the Golden Plate Award of the

American Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...

Death and legacy

Stephen Bechtel died on March 14, 1989, at Merritt Peralta Medical Center in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. He was buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland. Stephen was named by ''Time'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. The undergraduate engineering center of the

was named the "Bechtel Engineering Center." The Faculty of Engineering and Architecture at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

(AUB) is named "The Bechtel Engineering Building" after its donor, Stephen Bechtel.

References

* Herman, Arthur. ''Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II,'' Random House, New York, NY. .

External links

''Time'' magazine profile of Stephen Bechtel

About the faculty of engineering and architecture at AUB

Stephen Bechtel's biography on company web-site

''Six Companies, Now Single Unit, Ready to Sign Contract for Hoover Dam''
newspaper article; unknown date, includes photo of W.A. Bechtel Sr, S.D. Bechtel, K.K. Bechtel. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bechtel, Stephen, D. Sr. 1900 births 1989 deaths American technology chief executives Bechtel American construction businesspeople University of California, Berkeley alumni American company founders 20th-century American businesspeople Stanford University trustees Burials at Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California) American University of Beirut 20th-century American academics