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Henry J. Kaiser

Kaiser was born on May 9, 1882, in Sprout Brook, New York, the son of Franz and Anna Marie (née Yops) Kaiser, ethnic German immigrants.[2] His father was a shoemaker. Kaiser's first job was as a cash boy in a Utica, New York, department store at the age of 16. He worked as an apprentice photographer early in life, and was running the studio in Lake Placid by the age of 20.He used his savings to move to Washington state in 1906, where he started a construction company fulfilling government contracts.

Kaiser met his future wife, Bess Fosburgh, the daughter of a Virginia lumberman, when she came into his photographic shop in Lake Placid, New York, to buy film. Fosburgh's father demanded that Kaiser show that he was financially stable before he would consent to their marriage. Kaiser moved to Spokane and became a top salesman at a hardware company, returning ten months later with enough money to placate his future father-in-law.[2] They married on April 8, 1907, and had two children, Edgar Kaiser, Sr and Henry Kaiser, Jr.

In 1914 Kaiser founded a paving company, Henry J. Kaiser Co., Ltd. one of the first to use heavy construction machinery. His firm expanded significantly in 1927 when it received an $18-million contract to build roads in Camagüey Province, Cuba.[3] In 1931 his firm was one of the prime contractors in building the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and subsequently the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams on the Columbia River.

While doing business among the "Six Companies, Inc.", and remotely related to his interest in motor boat racing, he set up shipyards in Seattle and Tacoma, where he began using mass-production techniques, such as using welding instead of rivets.

Kaiser fought Hitler far more directly with what he is most famous for: the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California; during World War II adapting production techniques to enable building cargo ships with an average construction time of 45 days. These ships became known as Liberty ships and were later supplemented in the mid-war period by improved, larger and faster Victory ships. He became world-renowned when his teams built a ship in four days.The keel for the 10,500-ton SS Robert E. Peary was laid on Sunday, November 8, 1942, and the ship was launched in California from the Richmond Shipyard #2 on Thursday, November 12, four days and 15½ hours later.[8] The previous record had been ten days for the Liberty ship Joseph M. Teal.

A visit to a Ford assembly plant by one of his associates led to a decision to use welding instead of riveting for shipbuilding. Welding was advantageous because it took less strength to do and it was easier to teach to thousands of employees, who were mostly unskilled laborers and many women. Kaiser adopted the use of sub-assemblies in ship construction. Formerly, hundreds of laborers crowded together to complete a ship. Though that practice had been tried on the East Coast and in Britain, Kaiser was able to take full advantage of the process by constructing new shipyards using this concept.At Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, California, Kaiser implemented the pioneering idea of Dr. Sidney Garfield of Kaiser Permanente. Opened on August 10, 1942, Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital for Kaiser Shipyards was financed by the U.S. Maritime Commission, sponsored by Henry J. Kaiser's Permanente Foundation, and run by Dr. Garfield.[15] In part because of wartime materials rationing, the Field Hospital was a single-story wood-frame structure designed in a simple modernist mode. Originally intended for use primarily as an emergency facility, the Field Hospital opened with only 10 beds. Later additions had increased its capacity to 160 beds by 1944.

Kaiser's Richmond Field Hospital served as the mid-level component of a three-tier medical care system that included six well-equipped First Aid Stations at the shipyards and the main Permanente Hospital in Oakland, where the most critical cases were treated. By August 1944, 92.2% of all Richmond shipyard employees had joined Kaiser Permanente, the first voluntary group plan in the country to feature group medical practice, prepayment, and substantial medical facilities on such a large scale.[16] After the war, the Health Plan was expanded to include workers' families. To serve employees at his diverse businesses, Kaiser opened Permanente facilities in Walnut Creek, California, in Hawaii,[17] in Southern California, and eventually in many other locations.[18] Since then, locations have opened in Dublin, California;[19] Livermore, California; Pleasanton, California; Martinez, California; Santa Clara, California; and Antioch, California.Kaiser's first wife Bess Fosburgh died on March 14, 1951, after a prolonged illness.[47] Kaiser married the nurse who had cared for her, Alyce Chester (reportedly with his wife's blessing) on April 10, 1951.[48][49] He adopted her son, who as Michael Kaiser, attended nearby Lafayette public Vallecito School. Kaiser's attention soon transferred to Hawaii, and in 1955 he moved his family there. After Kaiser moved to Hawaii, the west Lafayette Kaiser estate deteriorated and was eventually demolished. Today, the property is unrecognizable, subdivided into several homes.

Death

On August 24, 1967, Kaiser died at the age of 85 in Honolulu. He is interred in Mountain View Cemetery in the Main Mausoleum, in Oakland, California.[50]

He was survived by his second wife, Alyce Chester Kaiser, who inherited half his fortune,[51] and by his elder son, Edgar F. Kaiser, who had been president of the Kaiser Industries Corporation since 1956.

One of Kaiser's grandsons, Edgar Kaiser, Jr, became president of Kaiser Steel from 1981 to 1984, and briefly owned the Denver Broncos NFL franchise.[54] Another grandson, Henry, is an Antarctic diver and experimental guitarist.

Legacy

Kaiser was involved in building civic centers, roads, and schools. He was part of the consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam.[3] Kaiser is also noted for advancing medicine with the development and construction of hospitals, medical centers and medical schools.[57][58] The mining town of Eagle Mountain, California, built as part of the West Coast's first integrated mining/processing operation, and linked by rail to his mill in Fontana, California, was an early user of Kaiser Permanente, the first health maintenance organization.

A class of 18 United States Navy fleet replenishment oilers built in the 1980s and 1990s is named the Henry J. Kaiser class. Its lead unit, USNS Henry J. Kaiser, the first U.S. Navy ship named for Kaiser, entered service with the Military Sealift Command on December 19, 1986.

In 1990, Kaiser was made a member of the Labor Hall of Fame of the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., supported by the Friends of the Department of Labor.

On December 1, 2009, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Kaiser posthumously into the California Hall of Fame in The California Museum, Sacramento, California.

Courtesy-wikipedia
- Henry J. Kaiser

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