Bechtel

Bechtel Corporation

Type	Privately held company
Industry	Engineering, Construction and Project Management
Founded	1898
Founder	Warren A. Bechtel
Headquarters	Blue Shield of California Building San Francisco, California, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Riley P. Bechtel, Chairman Brendan Bechtel, CEO
Products	Construction contracting
Revenue	$32.3 bn (2015)
Owner	Bechtel family and various internally elected employees
Number of employees	53,000 (2016)
Website	bechtel.com

Bechtel Corporation (Bechtel Group) is the largest construction and civil engineering company in the United States, and the 9th-largest privately owned American company in 2016. Its headquarters are in the South of Market, San Francisco.

Bechtel's business activities began in 1898 when cattle farmer Warren A. Bechtel moved from Peabody, Kansas, to the Oklahoma Territory to construct railroads with his own team of mules. Bechtel moved his family frequently between construction sites around the western United States for the next several years, eventually moving to Oakland, California in 1904, where he worked as the superintendent on the Western Pacific Railroad. In 1906, W. A. Bechtel won his first subcontract to build part of the Oroville-to-Oakland section of the Western Pacific Railroad. That same year, he bought his own steam shovel, becoming a pioneer of the new technology. He painted "W.A. Bechtel Co." on the side of the steam shovel, effectively establishing Bechtel as a company, though it was not yet incorporated.

Bechtel completed work on a series of railroad contracts during the early 1900s, culminating in an extension of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad finished in 1914.

Starting with the construction of Klamath River Highway in California in 1919, Bechtel ventured into jobs outside of building railroads. The company built roads, bridges, and highways throughout the western United States. The company worked on its first hydroelectric projects in the 1920s for Pacific Gas and Electric Company in California.