Kiewit Corporation is an American privately held construction company based in

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest ...

founded in 1884. In 2021, it was ranked 243rd on the

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Privately held A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...

, it is one of the largest construction and engineering organizations in North America. It is an employee-owned company.

History

The company was founded in 1884 as Kiewit Brothers Masonry Contractors by Peter and Andrew Kiewit, who were of Dutch descent. Their father, John Kiewit, emigrated from

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

in 1857, where he learned the trade of brickmaking. John Kiewit established a

brickyard A brickyard or brickfield is a place or yard where bricks are made, fired, and stored, or sometimes sold or otherwise distributed from. Brick makers work in a brick yard. A brick yard may be constructed near natural sources of clay or on or ...

in Omaha, Nebraska where his sons worked and learned the skills for their masonry business. Early projects included the seven-story Lincoln Hotel in Lincoln as stonemasons and the Bekins warehouse as general contractor. It is an employee-owned company. The original brothers dissolved their partnership in 1904 and the founding Peter Kiewit continued as a

sole proprietorship A sole proprietorship, also known as a sole tradership, individual entrepreneurship or proprietorship, is a type of enterprise owned and run by one person and in which there is no legal distinction between the owner and the business entity. A sol ...

. In 1912, two of his sons, Ralph and George Kiewit, joined their father as partners in the firm. One of their constructions was the Omaha Fire Department Hose Company No. 4 building, erected in 1913."OLD FIREHOUSE, NEW LIFE , EXPLORATION BY DESIGN"
– OmahaByDesign.org When the founding Peter Kiewit died in 1914, his son Ralph led the company. George and Ralph Kiewit left the company. The founder's youngest son, Peter Kiewit Jr., joined the firm in 1919. He led the firm from 1924 until his death in 1979. Peter Jr. turned the firm into one of the largest construction companies in the world. He was also very active in the Omaha area, including leadership of the

Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben The Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben Foundation is a 501(c)(3) civic and philanthropic organization in Omaha, Nebraska. History The organization was formed in 1895 in an attempt to keep the Nebraska State Fair in Omaha after receiving an ultimatum to provide ...

. In 1931, Peter Kiewit incorporated the company as Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co. The firm began building transportation projects during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Walter Scott was also a key figure in the growth of Kiewit. Scott was initially hired to work on the tower project at the Nebraska State Capitol and spent the remainder of his career at Kiewit becoming chief engineer.

Notable projects

*Throughout the 1920s the company built several historic buildings around Nebraska including the Livestock Exchange Building (1926), the Lincoln station (Nebraska, 1926–2012), the

Nebraska State Capitol The Nebraska State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Nebraska and is located in downtown Lincoln. Designed by New York architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue in 1920, it was constructed of Indiana limestone from 1922 to 19 ...

Tower (1927), Joslyn Art Museum (1928), and Union Station (Omaha)(1929). Inside Union Station (Omaha)

*Between 1951 and 1966, Kiewit built

Thule Air Base Thule Air Base (pronounced or , kl, Qaanaaq Mitarfik, da, Thule Lufthavn), or Thule Air Base/Pituffik Airport , is the United States Space Force's northernmost base, and the northernmost installation of the U.S. Armed Forces, located north ...

for the U.S. military in Thule, Greenland. Located on the northwest coast of Greenland, the base features a 10,000 foot runway. *In 1969, Kiewit began construction of the

63rd Street tunnel The 63rd Street Tunnel is a double-deck subway and railroad tunnel under the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens in New York City. Opened in 1989, it is the newest of the East River tunnels, as well as the newest rail river ...

between Manhattan and Queens. The initial project was part of a $2 billion program to improve the

New York City Transit Authority The New York City Transit Authority (also known as NYCTA, the TA, or simply Transit, and branded as MTA New York City Transit) is a New York state public-benefit corporations, public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York (state), New ...

and

Long Island Railroad The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average wee ...

facilities in

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East_Side_Access_Progress-_May_21,_2014_(14390036692)

*Between 1980 and 1985, the company built the mile-long $750 million

Fort McHenry Tunnel The Fort McHenry Tunnel is a four-tube, bi-directional tunnel that carries traffic on Interstate 95 (I-95) underneath the Baltimore Harbor. The lowest point in the Interstate System under water, the tunnel is named for nearby Fort McHenry. T ...

in Baltimore Harbor. *In the 1990s, Kiewit was part of a joint venture to build the $517 million

T-Mobile Park T-Mobile Park is a retractable roof stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the home ballpark of Major League Baseball's Seattle Mariners and has a seating capacity of 47,929. It is in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood, near the western t ...

in Seattle, home of the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion ...

baseball team. The project was completed in 1999. *Kiewit Infrastructure South is part of the team constructing the 11.5 mile and six-station extension of

Washington Metro The Washington Metro (or simply Metro), formally the Metrorail,Google Books search/preview

in Washington D.C. *In 2022, Kiewit broke ground on the largest (at the time) US PV and storage project utilizing Ojjo foundations, ATI racking and Maxeon bi-facial modules. This 967 MW (DC) project is located 45 minutes north of Las Vegas, NV.

Leadership

Rick Lanoha is the current chief executive officer of Kiewit Corporation. His predecessors include Peter Kiewit, Bob Wilson, Walter Scott Jr. Ken Stinson and Bruce E. Grewcock. Prior to Grewcock's retirement, on January 1, 2020, Lanoha had served as president and chief operating officer since 2016 and was elected to Kiewit's board of directors in 2009.

Walter Scott, Jr. Walter Scott Jr. (May 21, 1931 – September 25, 2021) was an American billionaire businessman, civil engineer, philanthropist, and CEO of Kiewit Corporation. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated at US$4.2 billion. Education He ...

was first elected to the Peter Kiewit Sons' Incorporated board in 1964. In 1979, he was elected president. When Peter Kiewit died later that same year, Scott was selected to succeed him as chairman.

Expansions

In 1963, Peter Kiewit bought the ''

Omaha World-Herald The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper ch ...

'' to keep it locally owned. Under the terms of his will, the employees bought the paper in 1979. Starting in 1985 (Kiewit built MFS in the early 1990s; Level 3 was built in the 1997 to 1999 circa), Kiewit also constructed a nationwide

fiber optic An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

network. This network was later spun off as

Level 3 Communications Level 3 Communications was an American multinational telecommunications and Internet service provider company headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. It ultimately became a part of CenturyLink (now Lumen Technologies), where Level 3 President ...

, which became the formal successor corporation to the original Peter Kiewit Sons'. They have a training facility called Kiewit University in its new Omaha, Nebraska campus that trains employees from throughout the US.

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*Mass. Electric Construction Co. – Industrial Group (MEC) of Boston, Massachusetts *Mass. Electric Construction Co. – Transportation Group (MEC) of

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*Cherne Contracting Corporation of

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*Midwest Aviation of

References

External links

* {{official website, url=http://www.kiewit.com/ Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1884 Companies based in Omaha, Nebraska Privately held companies of the United States Construction and civil engineering companies of the United States Employee-owned companies of the United States Privately held companies based in Nebraska 1884 establishments in Nebraska American companies established in 1884