History
Henry J. Kaiser 1882–1967 
One of the most interesting and innovative American industrialists of the 20th century. The American West had never seen a man like Henry Kaiser. He combined a broadness of vision with courage and entrepreneurial instincts that astounded both his rivals and his associates. He built an international industrial empire of dizzying diversity spread across the globe. He had a passion for building. He formed scores of companies during his lifetime to follow his enthusiasms in steel, chemicals, cement, aluminum, construction, automobiles, electronics, aviation, real estate development and more. 
He participated in or presided over such projects such as the San Francisco – Oakland bridge, the Shasta, Gran Coulee and Hoover Dams; including Boulder City, tunnels in Colorado and Maryland; aqueducts in New York, as well as a collection of smaller projects that included a subway, dry docks, canals, and some smaller dams; and a new set of locks for the Panama Canal. He pioneered the health care industry by starting Kaiser Permanente (1938) for his employees and built many hospitals. Later, it became a model for Health Management Organizations (HMOs) nationwide. His friend, Franklin Roosevelt, considered him for his running mate in the 1944 presidential election. Kaiser earned his greatest fame during the Second World War building ships that supplied Allied armies fighting a global war. He was nearly 60 years old by then, and yet, his future held far more for him than his past. He was just beginning to hit his stride. 
More than any war in history, World War II was a war of industry. Battalions of workers manning tens of thousands of factories on each of the world's inhabited continents faced off, each hurling its output at the other side. As Axis and Allied ships, planes, and tanks destroyed each other, the Allies, with an increasingly efficient output of replacement equipment, pushed back the forces of Germany and Japan until they surrendered. If there were generals of industry on the home front, Henry Kaiser was arguably the most powerful. He had the equivalent of 20 military divisions, 300,000 workers, engaged in a war effort manufacturing munitions, planes, and ships. Of all of the Kaiser wartime activities, though, he is still most associated with his achievements in shipbuilding. 
Cargo vessels were desperately needed by the embattled Allies who were losing thousands of tons of shipping to enemy submarines every month. Axis undersea successes were threatening to cut the supply lines to the battlefields. However, the simple fact remained that Kaiser had no shipyards. Kaiser and his staff plunged into shipbuilding, certain that they could do it better, faster, and cheaper than anyone had ever done before. They began building a shipyard in Richmond, California. Working 24 hours a day, they drained swamps, blasted rock, and built shipways. After only three months, shipyard workers laid the keel for the first of 1,490 vessels to come out of the most successful shipyards in maritime history. 
Simultaneously, Kaiser recruiters scoured the nation for more workers -- and what a work force it was! Able-bodied men already had been drafted by the military. The people available for service in the armies of shipyard workers were the physically unfit, the men too old for active duty, and the women who wanted to do their share for the war effort. What they had in common was that 99 out of every 100 of them had no shipyard experience. They needed to be trained in every shipbuilding craft. They also needed homes, schools, and medical care. Just getting them to and from their jobs meant developing a round-the- clock transportation system consisting of ferries, car pools, and even the New York City 3rd Avenue Elevated Railway, which was resurrected from an East Coast scrap heap and transported to California to be pressed into wartime service. In Oregon, where Kaiser was building more shipyards, his engineers designed an entire city for 35,000 people and built it in three months! 
Throughout the war, Kaiser continued to expand the shipyards, producing ships faster than they had ever been built before by anyone, anytime, anywhere. A new concept was introduced on a large scale. Pioneering the latest manufacturing techniques such as prefabrication of major components, welded hull construction and standardization of class; the ships were mass-produced, assembled in the shipways on a precise schedule. By war's end, the Kaiser yards had built 1,383 merchant ships and 107 warships including 50 Kaiser-inspired aircraft carriers. 
A way that the Kaiser people were able to encourage unprecedented innovation and speed in shipbuilding was through one of Henry Kaiser's favorite devices - competition. Former workers recall when a switching locomotive wasn't available to move freight cars around the shipyards, workers pushed and tugged the heavily laden cars to where they were needed rather than fall behind in their production schedules. In July 1943, Richmond shipyard workers launched a Liberty ship built in an unheard of 29 days. The Kaiser yards in Oregon took the Richmond achievement as a challenge and snatched the title away when they launched and delivered the SS Joseph N. Teal after only 24 days of construction. The Richmond workers took the world title back when they launched the SS Robert E. Peary in an astounding four days, 15 hours, and 26 minutes after laying the first strip of steel that became the keel. "The wonder ship" was at sea on its first voyage carrying essential wartime cargo only 15 days after construction had begun 
In addition to the shipyards, Kaiser was building planes, ship engines and manufacturing munitions. Kaiser's companies were also busy building airfields and other military facilities. When there was a shortage of steel plate for the shipyards, Kaiser built the Kaiser Steel Works in Fontana, California, and, despite wartime shortages, eight months later, the 12th largest steel mill in the United States was in production. Locating it many miles inland provided room for expansion and protected it from potential Japanese naval gunfire. It was one of the largest and most advanced manufacturing complexes of its day. The Kaiser Steel Works and its employees made exceptional contributions to the ultimate US victory in WWII over the forces of tyranny.
The post war years saw periods of boom and bust with a gradual decline in domestic steel production and manufacturing. The Kaiser Steel Works was upgraded and modernized after the war with a new 23 story high, $287 million plant built as recently as the 1980's. Once again, it was a state of the art metallurgical production facility. Its days were numbered though…
By 1993, Washington’s loosening of trade restrictions allowed the Kaiser Steel Works to be sold at bargain basement prices to the brutal Chinese communist government. A team of 200 communist technicians disassembled the plant, part by part, and shipped it to their homeland. Now, Kaiser’s monument to American industry makes steel for tanks, ships and automobiles in China.
What remains is home to the California Speedway and industrial ruins. The film Pearl Harbor was refused permission to film at the site because the current operator of the remaining plant, California Steel, is partially owned by Kawasaki Steel, a Japanese company.
Today we are again at war with the forces of tyranny. Kaiser Military Technologies Inc. humbly strives to carry on the Henry Kaiser’s legacy of manufacturing excellence and innovation. Once again, all Kaiser designed products are proudly made in the USA.
