Henry J. Kaiser Entrepreneur and industrialist Henry John
Kaiser’s innovations in shipbuilding and in healthcare changed
the course of history. In 1913, Kaiser bought a failing road-
building company, and over the next fifteen years built dams in
California, levees in Mississippi, highways in Cuba and he was
just getting started. In the 1930s, his company played a leading
role in the construction of some of the 20th century’s most
massive projects, including Hoover Dam and the Oakland-San
Francisco Bay Bridge. Although he had never manufactured cement
before, when he lost the bid to build Shasta Dam, he instead
started a cement company to supply the six million tons of it
needed for the project. And although he’d never built a ship
before, he became known as the father of modern American
shipbuilding. When World War II began, he established seven
shipyards - including four in Richmond, California – that
produced more ships than any other in the United States. The
methods he developed for mass production are st