Henry J. Kaiser

Henry J. Kaiser

This article is about the American industrialist and shipbuilder. For the U.S. Navy fleet replenishment oiler, see USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO-187). For the class of U.S. Navy fleet replenishment oilers, see Henry J. Kaiser class oiler.

Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882—August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. He established the Kaiser Shipyard which built Liberty ships during World War II, after which he formed Kaiser Aluminum and Kaiser Steel. Interested in industrial medicine and public health, Kaiser organized Kaiser Permanente health care for his workers and their families. He led Kaiser-Frazer followed by Kaiser Motors, automobile companies known for the safety of their designs. Kaiser was involved in large construction projects such as civic centers and dams, and invested in real estate. With his acquired wealth, he initiated the Kaiser Family Foundation, a charitable organization.

Early life

Henry J. Kaiser was born on 9 May 1882 at Sprout Brook, Montgomery County New York.

He worked as an apprentice photographer early in his life, and was running the company by the age of twenty. He used his eanings to move to Washington state where he started a construction company that fulfilled government contracts.

After moving to the West Coast in 1906, he founded in 1914 a road-paving company, one of the first to use heavy construction machinery. His firm expanded significantly in 1927 when it received a $20-million contract to build roads in Cuba. In 1931 his firm was one of the prime contractors in building the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, and the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams on the Columbia River.

He had never built a ship before, but he set up shipyards in Seattle and Tacoma where he began using mass-production techniques such as using welding over rivets.

World War II

He became most famous for the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California during World War II, adopting production techniques that generated cargo ships on the average of one every 45 days. These ships became known as Liberty ships. He became world renowned when his teams built a ship in 4 days. The keel for the 10,500 ton Robert E. Peary was laid on Sunday, November 8, 1942, and the ship was launched in California from the Richmond Shipyard #2 on Thursday, November 12, four days and 15 1/2 hours later. The previous record had been 10 days for the Liberty ship Joseph M. Teal.

Other Kaiser Shipyards were located in Ryan Point (Vancouver) on the Columbia River in Washington state and on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon. A smaller vessel was turned out in 71 hours and 40 minutes from the Vancouver yard on November 16, 1942. The concepts he developed for the mass production of commercial and military ships are still in use today. It was at the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards where he financed the pioneering idea of Dr. Sydney Garfield, the Kaiser Permanente HMO. The Kaiser hulls also became America's escort carriers, over one hundred small aircraft carriers which sailed into harm's way in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Wars.

One of the problems with the pioneering use of welded hulls, not known at that time, was the issue of 'brittle fracture.' This caused the loss of some liberty ships in cold seas as the welds would fail and the hulls of the ships would crack - sometimes completely in two. Constance Tipper was one of the first people to discover why the liberty ships were breaking in two. Minor changes in design and more rigid welding control enforced in 1947 eliminated liberty ship losses until 1955.

Through his membership in a group called the Six Companies, Kaiser also had a major role in the Joshua Hendy Iron Works of Sunnyvale, California which built the EC-2 triple expansion steam engines for the Liberty ships.

Post-World War II

As a real estate magnate, Kaiser was the founder of the Honolulu suburban community of Hawaiʻi Kai in Hawaiʻi (where there is a public high school named in his honor) and Panorama City near Los Angeles.

The Kaiser Center in downtown Oakland was the headquarters of Kaiser Industries. Up to that time, it was Oakland's tallest building, as well as "the largest office tower west of Chicago"

In 1945, Kaiser partnered with veteran automobile executive Joseph Frazer to establish a new automobile company from the remnants of Graham-Paige, of which Frazer had been president. It would use a surplus Ford Motor Company defense plant at Willow Run, Michigan originally built for World War II aircraft production by Ford. Kaiser Motors produced cars under the Kaiser and Frazer names until 1955, when it abandoned the U.S. market and moved production to plants in Brazil and Argentina. In the late 1960s, these South American operations were sold to a Ford-Renault combine. In 1953, Kaiser purchased Willys-Overland, manufacturer of the Jeep line of utility vehicles, changing its name to Willys Motors. In 1963, the name was changed again to Kaiser-Jeep, which was ultimately sold to American Motors Corporation in 1970. As part of the transaction, Kaiser acquired a 22% interest in AMC, which was later divested. Kaiser entered the aluminum industry in 1946 with Kaiser Aluminum.

In 1948, Kaiser established the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, (also known as Kaiser Family Foundation), a U.S.-based, non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the nation. The Foundation, not associated with Kaiser Permanente or Kaiser Industries, is an independent voice and source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public.

Henry Kaiser spent much of his later years in Honolulu and developed an obsession with perfecting its urban landscape. He founded the Kaiser Hawaiian Village Hotel, now one of the most famous Hilton resorts in the world. Kaiser also constructed one of the first commercially practical geodesic domes in the United States at this resort. Kaiser died at age 85 on August 24, 1967 at Honolulu, Oahu County Hawaii.

Legacy

Kaiser was involved in building civic centers, roads, and schools. He was part of the consortium that constructed the Hoover Dam and Grand Coulee Dam. Kaiser is also noted for advancing medicine with the development and construction of several hospitals, medical centers and medical schools. His mining town of Eagle Mountain, California, part of the West Coast's first integrated mining/processing operation linked by rail to his mill in Fontana, California, was the birthplace of Kaiser Permanente, the first health maintenance organization. Fontana is now home to another public high school named in his honor. His grandson, Edgar F. Kaiser, Jr., was the former President of Kaiser Steel. From 1981–1984, he also owned the Denver Broncos NFL franchise. Another grandson, also named Henry Kaiser, is a widely known experimental guitarist. In 1967, Kaiser died at the age of 85. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.

In 1984, the Oakland Auditorium was renamed the Kaiser Convention Center in honor of Kaiser after a renovation that year.

A class of 18 United States Navy fleet replenishment oilers built in the 1980s and 1990s is named the Henry J. Kaiser class. Its lead unit, USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO-187), the first U.S. Navy ship named for Kaiser, entered service with the Military Sealift Command on December 19, 1986.

On August 25, 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announced that Kaiser would be one of 13 California Hall of Fame inductees in The California Museum's yearlong exhibit. The induction ceremony is on December 1, 2009 in Sacramento, California.

Birth place

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  Kaiser was born in this house located near Canajoharie, New York.
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External links

• Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
• Detailed biography
• History of Kaiser Aluminum
• Kaisers Last Liberty Ship (video link).
• "Henry J.'s Pink Hawaii". Time Magazine. October 24, 1960. Retrieved 2007-09-09.