Edmund Wattis Littlefield (1914–2001) was an American businessman, philanthropist, and member of the
Bohemian Club
The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California, and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of jour ...
Utah Construction Company
The Utah Construction Company was a construction company founded by Edmund Orson Wattis Jr., Warren L. Wattis and William. H. Wattis in 1900.
History
The Wattis Brothers received funding from David Eccles, Thomas Dee, Joseph Clark and Jam ...
. Littlefield started his business career as a water boy for the Utah Construction Company. He received an undergraduate degree in 1936 and an MBA in 1938 from
Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
. During World War II, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy and an analyst on petroleum supplies for the war effort.
In 1951, Littlefield returned to Utah Construction Company as the vice president of finance. He became the general manager and principal officer of Utah Construction Company in 1958. Under his leadership, Utah Construction Company became the most profitable mining and land development company in the United States in the 1960s, and in 1976 merged with GE in the largest corporate merger at that time. The merger and subsequent appreciation of GE stock gave Littlefield a ranking on the
Forbes 400
The ''Forbes'' 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by ''Forbes'' magazine of the wealthiest 400 American citizens who own assets in the U.S., ranked by net worth. The 400 was started by Malcolm Forbes in 1982 and the list is ...
list of wealthiest Americans with a net worth of $2.3 billion in 2001.Littlefield – Forbes Listing /ref>
Littlefield served on the boards of some of the largest corporations in the US, including GE,
Bechtel
Bechtel Corporation () is an American engineering, procurement, construction, and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898, and headquartered in Reston, Virginia in the Washington metropolitan area. , the '' E ...
Investment,
Chrysler
FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...
and
Wells Fargo Bank
Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important fi ...
Daniel J. Levitin
Daniel Joseph Levitin, Royal Society of Canada, FRSC (born December 27, 1957) is an American-Canadian polymath, cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, writer, musician, and record producer. He is the author of four ''New York Times'' best-selli ...
, who worked as his executive assistant in the 1980s, in his book
The Organized Mind
''The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload'' is a bestselling popular science book written by the McGill University neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin, PhD, and first published by Dutton Penguin in the United States ...
.
As a
philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...
, Littlefield financially supported the building of the Edmund W. Littlefield Center, which houses the
Stanford
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
Lone Sailor Award
The United States Navy Memorial presents a Lone Sailor Award to Sea Service veterans who have excelled with distinction in their respective careers during or after their service. The award recipients will join a list of men and women who have dist ...