Number One Builder

With a faith that has literally moved mountains, Peter Kiewit '22, who in 1952 won the contract for building the $1.2 billion dollar uranium plant in southern Ohio for the Atomic Energy Commission, thus becoming the world's number one builder, seriously began his long career when he was in the hospital for nine months with an attack of phlebitis, followed by severe complications. This was shortly after he left Dartmouth. He then decided, "If I'm going to die, I might as well die working."

When he was once more back on duty, heading his father's contracting firm in Omaha, his philosophy of work became and remained different from that of other successful builders. He has a motto, "No job is too big or too small." Three years ago, when his firm was grossing more than one hundred million dollars a year, he won a contract to resurface three Nebraska streets at a cost of 51500. After the completion of a good piece of work - large or small — he is likely to say, "I'm pleased but not satisfied." In still another way he departs from the accepted way of doing business. He is notoriously averse to publicity. "We've done pretty well without it," he says.

Kiewit's do-or-die outlook on his work helped him to meet the depression headon. When other contractors were retrenching, Kiewit's firm expanded. He guessed that a public works program would be used to alleviate the depression and was ready for large-scale jobs. He landed three million dollars worth of PWA-financed irrigation projects in Nebraska and was given other bids because he offered work at cost, in the belief - later justified - that prices would be dropping still further, enabling him to make a profit.

In the World War II period, Peter Kiewit directed or shared more than three hundred million dollars of Government contracts, ranging from Army camps to landing fields. Three years ago the Army Engineers found that he was the only builder who could take on "Operation Bluejay," a gigantic contract to build heavy bomber airfields in Greenland and housing for 4,000 men. His present contract with the Atomic Energy Commission - signed while 113 other Kiewit jobs were in progress - will require four years to complete and is the second largest single construction contract ever awarded (Du Pont's Savannah River H-Bomb job is biggest). Spread over 6,500 acres, the new AEC plant will be built by 17,000 men for the whole period, at a cost of almost one million dollars a day.

Peter Kiewit spends a good share of his personal wealth in transportation, so that he can personally supervise jobs which may be at one end of the earth or another. He has his own plane, equipped for transocean flight. At the end of his hops he is apt to pitch into the work in progress to show his men how he wants things done, and for morale. His claim was well founded when he wrote recently of his profession, "We become builders, not just builders of roads, dams and hospitals, but also builders of men."

PETER KIEWIT '22