History
The company was founded in 1884 by Peter Kiewit, a bricklayer of Dutch descent. The founder's son, also named Peter Kiewit, headed the firm from 1924 until his death in 1979. During his life it became one of the largest construction companies in the world. He was also very active in the Omaha area. In 1963, he bought the Omaha World-Herald to keep it locally owned. Under the terms of his will, the employees bought the paper in 1979. Walter Scott, Jr., 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. Starting in 1985, Peter Kiewit also constructed a nation-wide fiber optic network that it later spun off as Level 3 Communications.
Read more about this topic: Kiewit Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)