HENRY KAISER IS A MAN OF IRON

Taupo Times, Volume VI, Issue 286, 1 August 1957, Page 6

HENRY KAISER IS A MAN OF IRON

I11 1942, when be was 60 years old, Henry J. Kaiser said with no doubts at all that he wouldn't give up work until lie was 90. R cently, as he turned 75 and pfesumably was halfway to his 1942 goal, ha deliberatly moved Ihe target further away. "I don't tliink I'll be doing anything mucli different than what I'm doing right now when I'm 100," he said. Kaiser is now chairnian and/or president of 32 corporations with anliual saies of 809 million dollars (£356 million) . He is' building the 110-million-dollar Hawai ian Yillage, a Polynesian pleasure dome, at Waikiki. . He'll soon announce plans for Kaiser Cenire at Oakland, California, a headqiiartci'S for Iiis • corporate empire. This 40-million-dollai' office building will be the largest west of the Rockies. Fngimered and constructed by the Ilenry J. Kaiser Co., wliicli will also supply the sand and gravel, it will be built witli Kaiser pvoducts : iron and steel, cement, gypsum, alumin- 1 i niu. Among iiis many projects, which cover 20 countries, Kaiser is at present busy making monkeys of the

Russians in India, wliere the additions he is making to Ihe Jamshedpur plant will increase India's steel capacity 45 per cent. Kaiser, starting a year after the Russians began their steel plant constniction for the Indians, will be ready to roll a year before the Russians are. Ever since Henry J. arrived in Honolulu, hurling his pink-clad ("pink is a happy colour") 17-stone bulk through a typical 14-hour day— starting at 5.30 a.m. breakfast — he hal iiabbergasted the natives. Dredging out a four-aere tropical Jagoon, lie dumped 3000 truckloads of sand . over coral to make a beach, built a 1000-seat auditorium in 60 days, and built a 100-room, million dollar hotel in 89 days. All this prompted the Honolulu Advertiser to ask : "Is he really a mortal? Or is he perliaps a menehune — oue of the legendary people of Hawaii's past who built great works overnight in the hours of darkness." Henry J. has been a menehune ever since' he went to work for a haberdashery store at 13. The bi g trick then was to slay alive on his oue dollar 410 cenrs a Week salary. Highway to Success His tirst company, Henry J. Kaiser Co., Ltd., a highway building firm, was founded in 1914, When he was 32. Kaiser considers 1927 the turningpoint, when lie won a 20-million-dol-lar contract to rain 200 miles of highway and 500 bridges through wildest Cuba.