bechtel family politics

[169] In 2016, the unit was contracted by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation to design an upgrade to the coker unit at the Assiut refinery in Egypt using its ThruPlus technology. During World War II, that firm, Bechtel-McCone Corp., entered into the business of building ships for the government, with the help of a land grant at Terminal Island in Los Angeles. Bechtel built 54 km of Transylvania Motorway for EUR 1.25 billion. [26], In 1987, Bechtel was awarded a contract for project management services of an undersea tunnel linking the UK and France called the Channel Tunnel or "Chunnel." [39] In the early 2000s, the company provided planning and management services for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. [192] Bechtel continues to oversee the operation. [88][89] Transportation projects include highways, bridges, rail, and aviation facilities. Summary: Vern Bechtel currently lives in Georgetown, TX; in the past Vern has also lived in Austin TX. [126], The Mining & Metals (M&M) unit works on projects related to the mining and production of materials such as aluminum, coal, copper, iron ore, alumina and other metals and minerals. [150][144] It completed the first of six trains in December 2014. All the while, the firm has remained privately owned and tightly controlled by four generations of the Bechtel family, making it a rarity among American family-founded corporations, most of which were sold or taken public as squabbling descendants of the founders succumbed to the lure of cash-producing stock offerings. Bechtel contributed $685,125 to California politics during the past decade, $65,000 of which was directly related to the BART system, in which Bechtel is a contractor. [149], Between 2011 and 2016, the unit built three LNG plants on Curtis Island in Queensland, Australia. It's a record that few, if any, companies in the world can match. Riley completed his Davis and a JD/MBA from Stanford University in 1977. [197][198], Brendan Bechtel is Chairman and CEO and is the fifth generation of the Bechtel family to lead the company. Now, at the end of 2020, we are closing shop following a 12-year spend down that involved well over a billion dollars in grantmaking. But over time, Bechtel also became a truly global player, leading construction of the Channel Tunnel between England and France and building several major airports, including a $20 billion project at Hong Kong International, among other efforts. As of 2013, it is considered the most complex project in the US. [15], In 1991, Bechtel, in a joint venture with Parsons Brinckerhoff, broke ground on Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel Project or "Big Dig," a project the company had been in charge of since 1986. George Shultz, distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a board member of Bechtel. [41] Bechtel won a competitively-bid second contract in January 2004,[47] and completed 97 of 99 task orders of the contract, returning the two remaining projects due to the escalating security concerns in the country. (Bechtel-McCone also had sites near Sausalito and Richmond.) [41] In 2000, after a protest against water prices being raised by a utility partially owned by Bechtel in Bolivia, the company pulled out of the country and later filed suit against Bolivia for $25 million in losses. The tunnel was completed in 1994. American construction and civil engineering company. The earliest bearers of this name to be mentioned in ancient chronicles were Bechtold of Fulda in 1387, Bechtold Suleffel of Frankfurt in 1442, and Tibertius Bechtolf of Frankfurt in 1568. [77][78], Bechtel works on global megaprojects through its four business units. (The company left Bolivia, but remains in litigation over the project.) But in 1998, when Democrats controlled the White House, some 67 percent of Bechtel's contributions went to their party. Depending on ideology, one could view the company as either a shining success or a horrific monster. Not only was the man's family divided, but the man himself was as well. [94], Bechtel is also participating in the building of London's Crossrail, a $24 billion project that will connect commuter towns east and west of London and is intended to serve an estimated 200 million people a year upon completion. Attorneys representing Bibb County school board member Gary Bechtel and his family in a lawsuit against Superintendent Romain Dallemand are gearing up for a … [127][128] It has also finished 42 major copper projects, 30 aluminum smelters, 15 major coal projects, and eight alumina refinery projects. Weinberger, of course, subsequently became Ronald Reagan's secretary of defense. For decades, Bechtel has been closely aligned with Stanford University. [140] As of 2016, Bechtel is advancing the Amrun bauxite initiative for Rio Tinto in Australia, which announced project approval in November 2015. [201], Several high-ranking Bechtel executives at times held important positions in the United States government. He received a bachelor's degree in political science and psychology from the University of California, Davis and a JD/MBA from Stanford University in 1977. (He later returned to a board seat.) [81][155] Following completion of Train 1 in late 2017, Train 2 of the facility moved into production mid-2018. The company later built the United States' first privately financed commercial nuclear power plant, the Dresden Generating Station, for Commonwealth Edison in Illinois in 1957. [48], Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Bechtel was one of four companies hired by FEMA to build temporary housing. [104][105][106], In 2018, Bechtel's work on Panda Power Funds' Hummel Station Power Plant in Pennsylvania was completed. The initiative will make Alba the world's largest single-site aluminum smelter upon completion, boosting production to 1.5 Mtpa. [138] That same month, Rio Tinto announced that Kitimat had reached full production levels of 420,000 tonnes per annum,[139] while Las Bambas achieved commercial production in July 2016. Obituary story of Warren A. Bechtel; Peabody Gazette-Herald; October 12, 1933. ", "Bechtel team arrives to review Games plans", "Continuity and change at the family firm", "Channel Tunnel, Strait of Dover, English Channel, United Kingdom", "Big Dig tragedy could stain Bechtel's name / Delays, cost overruns, leaks and now a death in Boston puts spotlight on S.F. [186][187][188] In late 2017, Bechtel completed the assembly of two nuclear waste melters, each at 300 tons. The Export-Import Bank of the United States, which loans money to foreign countries for the export of American goods and services, counted Stephen D. Bechtel Sr. among the members of its advisory committee from 1969 to 1972, and the engineering firm has maintained numerous ties since, with a company vice president now on the bank's advisory committee. [130], In 2014, M&M completed the Caval Ridge coal mine in Queensland,[131] and began operations at Escondida's OLAP copper cathode project, which consisted of a new dynamic leaching pad and a mineral handling system. [156][157], Bechtel has built five LNG production trains for Cheniere Energy Partners LP as the Sabine Pass liquefaction project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. A “ tall, beefy man with a bull-like roar,” Warren Augustine Bechtel, whose legacy would be one of the greatest engineering achievements in American history, came into the world on September 12, 1872. [31], As a result of the Gulf war, Bechtel accepted the task of extinguishing oil well fires in Kuwait in 1991. Stephen Bechtel Jr. graduated from the university's MBA program, as did Riley, who also has a law degree from Stanford. Bechtel began working with California Standard Oil Company to build pipelines and refineries. Digital Press Release Service KISS PR Offers Great News for Content Creators in 2021! [144], The Oil, Gas & Chemicals unit designs and builds liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil, pipeline, petrochemicals, natural gas, and water treatment facilities. His parents are Elizabeth Hogan and Stephen Bechtel Jr., the former chairman and CEO of the company. Here's why it's so important", "Saudi Spends $22 Billion on Riyadh Metro Line Construction", "Bechtel built 54 km of Transylvania Motorway for EUR 1.25 billion, but agreed to renegotiate contract", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bechtel&oldid=997390847, Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States, Energy engineering and contractor companies, Nuclear technology companies of the United States, Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1898, Privately held companies based in Virginia, Articles lacking reliable references from August 2016, All Wikipedia articles written in American English, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Facility of six LNG trains currently in development and a, Master plan for infrastructure development in, Rapid transit system under construction in. The center also provides virtual training and augmented reality to train workers. Bechtel Co. was founded in Oakland during the late 1800s, doing construction work for the railroads' expansion into the west. This family are members of St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church at Boyertown. [79] The company frequently manages work from design through construction phases. [8][9][10], In 1925, Warren, his sons Warren Jr, Stephen, Kenneth (Ken), and his brother Arthur (Art) joined him to incorporate as W.A. [124] Bechtel's work on the Carroll County Energy Facility in Ohio for Advanced Power was also completed in 2017. Because Bechtel is a private company, the firm's books are out of public view, but the Bechtel fortune is an industry — and a power — unto itself. [176], The Nuclear, Security & Environmental unit handles the company's government work and commercial nuclear businesses. [170] Also in 2016, it was awarded a contract to upgrade a refinery in Beaumont, Texas, for ExxonMobil, using ExxonMobil's proprietary SCANfining technology. The contract led to the company being accused of both non-competitive bidding and war profiteering. The companies did not admit wrongdoing; they said they settled to avoid long, costly litigation. [172] In January 2018, the unit was awarded a front-end engineering design contract for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's planned offshore ultra-sour gas mega project located in the north western area of Abu Dhabi. [90], In 2013, the unit completed construction of Saudi Arabia's first aluminum smelter in Ras Al-Khair,[127] the Daunia coal mine in Queensland, Australia,[129] and the expansion of the Kooragang Coal Terminal in Port Waratah in Australia, increasing capacity to 145 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). [64][82][83], Bechtel was the presenting sponsor of "Dream Big: Engineering Our World," a 42-minute IMAX documentary produced by MacGillivray Freeman Films in partnership with American Society of Civil Engineers. W. A. Bechtel Co. was a family business from the beginning. Its real estate arm, Fremont Properties, owns some 4 million square feet of commercial real estate, including the 23-story Bechtel Building, five other office buildings in San Francisco, and IBM's Internet division headquarters in Somers, N.Y. During the past several years, Bechtel has expanded its role into that of shareholder in several projects. [8][9] He painted "W.A. Throughout his political … Bechtel was eventually forced to leave the project, and has filed a $25 million claim against the Bolivian government in a World Bank court. After limited success on its own, the outfit joined with Texas Oil Co. (Texaco), Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, and Mobil Oil Co. in a new venture called the Arabian American Oil Co. (Aramco). [41][42], In 2001, Bechtel began work on the Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at the Hanford site in Washington state. Closer to home, Riley Bechtel is a regular at Pebble Beach and plays in the PGA's celebrity Pro-Am tournament there. The W.A. [32][33] Bechtel's other major projects during the 1990s included the Athens Metro system,[14] the Atlantic LNG in Trinidad,[26] the Croatian Motorway,[34] the Jubilee Line Extension for the London Underground, Quezon Power Plant in the Philippines,[35] and a semiconductor plant in China. [page]. Protesters descended on the company's headquarters after a controversial utility project Bechtel and its partners built for the Bolivian government resulted in soaring water rates in 2000. Another $60,000 went toward defeating a proposition that would have required that state construction projects use Caltrans engineers exclusively, significantly cutting work to private contractors such as Bechtel. In the past, Vern has also been known as Vern R Bechtel, Lavern R Bechtel and Laverne R Bechtel. In mid-November, as President Donald Trump railed against the election results, his wife, first lady Melania Trump publicly agreed with his sentiments. 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