Bechtel

Bechtel

Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest construction and engineering company in the United States, ranking as the 5th-largest privately owned company in the U.S. Its headquarters are in the Financial District of San Francisco. As of 2010, Bechtel had $27.9 billion in revenue and employed 52,700 workers on projects in nearly 40 countries.

Bechtel participated in the building of Hoover Dam in the 1930s. It has also had involvement in a number of other high profile construction engineering projects: numerous power projects such as refineries and nuclear power plants; transportation projects including the Channel Tunnel, the BART system, King Fahd International Airport in Dammam (the largest Airport in the world by land area), Hong Kong International Airport and the Big Dig; and other projects such as the Kingdom Centre and Tower in Saudi Arabia, Jubail Industrial City, the rebuilding of the civil infrastructure of Iraq funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the hauling and installing of more than 35,000 trailers and mobile homes for Hurricane Katrina victims in Mississippi.

The Bechtel family has owned Bechtel since incorporating the company in 1945. Bechtel's size, its political clout, and its penchant for privacy have made it a constant subject of scrutiny for journalists and politicians since the 1930s. Bechtel owns and operates power plants, oil refineries, water systems, and airports in several countries including the United States, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.