The company Bechtel built is not universally loved. One partner in the wartime shipyards was John McCone, then a steel executive who later became CIA director. He came early in a long line of men who alternately filled high offices in Bechtel and the Federal Government (most notable: George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger). That led to charges of undue influence — by whom on whom was never quite clear. The company's penchant for secrecy didn't help its reputation, either. In 1976 the Justice Department charged that Bechtel had gone too far to please Arab clients by blacklisting potential subcontractors who dealt with Israel. Bechtel signed a consent decree promising not to join any Arab boycott of Israel.

None of that has prevented the company, now headed by Riley Bechtel, a grandson of Steve's, from flourishing mightily. When Steve Sr. took over, Bechtel had revenues of less than $20 million; a quarter century later, when he officially retired, sales were $463 million. The company, still family controlled, had 1997 revenues of $11.3 billion; its projects range from a transit system in Athens to a semiconductor plant in China. These and others are fruits of Steve Bechtel's forward thinking — decades before the term global economy became a cliche.

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