HERMAN AND GEORGE R. BROWN, formidable figures in the construction industry and Texas politics, made a unique business team. Practical and decisive Herman, a builder by nature, and university trained, soft-spoken George, a natural salesperson, combined their individual strengths with their shared work ethic and ambition to develop Brown & Root, a company that began by building roads and grew into a diversified international construction company. Builders serves both as a history of their careers and as an examination of business life in mid-twentieth-century America.Five years after he began a small road construction company in Central Texas in 1914, Herman, using capital from brother-in-law Dan Root, formed Brown & Root, with George joining the company in 1922. After searching aggressively for work during the Depression, their big break came when they won the contract for the Marshall Ford Dam on the Colorado River in 1936. During World War II they grew into a national presence by building several large-scale military projects and carried that momentum through the postwar boom years, when Brown & Root expanded to become a successful international company.
In addition to examining Herman and George Brown's business accomplishments, Joseph A. Pratt and Christopher J. Castaneda also address the political influence and antiunionism associated with the Brown name. The authors present a balanced account of both the Brown's treatment of workers and their longtime relationship with Lyndon Baines Johnson. Builders also traces the brothers' philanthropy, including the work of the Brown Foundation, through which George in particular contributed to the development of educational and culturalinstitutions.
This carefully researched and well-written biography of two brothers who strove for success and emphatically achieved it is sure to interest students and enthusiasts of both business and Texas history.
