Builders

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/972777.Builders

Builders: Herman And George R. Brown by Joseph A. Pratt, Christopher J. Castaneda

Herman and George R. Brown, formidable figures in the construction industry and Texas politics, made a unique business team. Practical and decisive Herman and university-trained, soft-spoken George, a natural salesperson, combined their individual strengths with their shared work ethic and ambition to develop Brown & Root, one of America’s preeminent construction companies. Builders serves both as a history of their lives and as an examination of business life in mid-twentieth-century America.Five years after he began a small road construction company in Central Texas in 1914, Herman, using capital from brother-in-law Dan Root, formed Brown & Root, with George joining the company in 1922. After searching aggressively for work during the Depression, they got a big break when they won the contract for the Marshall Ford Dam on the Colorado River in 1936. During World War II they grew into a national presence by building several large-scale military projects, and they carried that momentum through the post-war boom years, when Brown & Root expanded to become a diversified international company.

In addition to examining Herman and George Brown’s business accomplishments, Joseph A. Pratt and Christopher J. Castaneda also address the political influence and antiunionism associated with the Brown name. The authors present a balanced account of both the Browns’ treatment of workers and of their longtime relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Builders also traces the brothers’ philanthropy, including the work of the Brown Foundation, through which George in particular contributed to the development of educational and cultural institutions.

This biography should interest anyone whoappreciates the history of business and its practitioners.