BECHTEL Co.” across the cab and proclaimed himself in business. He was 34 years old, and ready to strike out on his own.
As a builder, Bechtel was very much in the hands-on mold. An imposing man with a powerful voice that could be heard over the din of a construction site, he didn’t stand by and watch work progress, but ran the jobs himself, operating the steam shovel and driving the wagon teams. Even years later, after he had become one of the most successful construction bosses in the country, he delighted in stripping off his suit jacket and climbing onto one of the big shovels, beaming like a schoolboy as he operated the levers that set the giant machinery in motion.
Besides his mechanical talents, Bechtel also showed himself to be a shrewd judge of character, and gradually began to surround himself with the team that would later dominate the Bechtel Corporation. One of his first hires was George S. Cooley, a gregarious, freewheeling contractor whom he’d first met in Nevada, and whose son George junior would later become a senior Bechtel vicepresident and director, as well as the closest friend of Warren’s own son Steve. Another early recruit was Earle G. Lloyd, a former insurance agent from Nebraska and a topflight administrator and purchasing agent. Eventually, Lloyd would go on to become a leading manager of the Bechtel Corporation’s finances and Warren’s most intimate confidant. An unapologetic partisan of family advancement, Warren also hired his younger brother Arthur, a happy-go-lucky “crane jockey” who prided himself on his 22
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ability to operate and maintain his brother’s growing mechanical fleet.
“That first Marion shovel we bought was my own baby,” Arthur was to boast y ears later. “There wasn’t another shovel-runner along the whole line I had to take my hat off to when it came to pitching dirt. “3
As the business expanded, Bechtel sought out more and more work, particularly railroad construction west of the Rockies. This, in turn, brought him to a pair of cantankerous Utah brothers named W illiam H. and E. 0. Wattis. Elderly Mormons, the Wattises ran Utah Construction and, many believed, the State of Utah as well. Earlier, Bechtel had subcontracted work from them in Oregon; he now began badgering them for more. After months of entreaties, the Wattises, who were none too keen on working with non-Mormon “gentiles,” finally relented. “Might as well have him in,” as W H. put it to his brother, “as to have him bitin’ our feet.””
They offered Warren a major subcontracting job: the building of a large irrigation project outside Oakdale, California. There was, however, a catch. To get the work, Bechtel had to agree to take on as a partner E. O.’s son Ray.
Eager to ally himself with a powerful company, Bechtel agreed, and almost immediately began having second thoughts. One problem was that the job turned out to be far more difficult than he had imagined.
For in digging, Bechtel and his new y oung associate soon ran into a massive ledge of blue diorite, an igneous rock nearly as hard as steel.
Conventional hand drills barely dented it, and the fate of the project hung in the balance. The job was saved when Bechtel, who kept close track of new developments in construction technology, brought in a recently developed motor-driven drill that proved powerful enough to cut through
