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Community Involvement

AGE OF DISCOVERY For the past 20 years, Bechtel has partnered with the National Engineers Week Foundation on DiscoverE, a nationwide “teach  in” that introduces primary and secondary school students to the exciting possibilities of a career in engineering. In this video, Bechtel CEO Riley Bechtel and his father, former CEO Stephen Bechtel Jr., discuss this innovative program.

Delivering quality and value to our customers has always been Bechtel’s priority. But our commitment also extends to improving the standard of living and quality of life of the communities where we do business. In office and project communities, we work with employees and customers to improve the civic, economic, educational, and social environment.

Here are some examples:

Taking it to the Bank

In 2009, Bechtel’s San Francisco office observed a 20-year partnership with the San Francisco Food Bank.

Since 1989, hundreds of employees have sorted, stacked, packed, and repacked food in the organization’s warehouse. The Food Bank collects edible but unmarketable food from manufacturers, supermarkets, growers, and others and distributes it to more than 600 San Francisco nonprofit organizations, including neighborhood pantries, soup kitchens, senior centers, homeless shelters, and youth programs.

Bechtel also played a role in expanding the Food Bank’s reach in the early 1990s. At that time, the organization operated from a facility with a leaking roof and a shortage of cooler and freezer space. Chairman and CEO Riley Bechtel co-chaired a campaign that raised money for a larger, permanent distribution center, Bechtel Group Foundation donated $300,000, and the company provided pro bono project management services during the warehouse’s design and construction.

 

No Reason to Quake

Children at Gyan Devi Public School in Gurgaon, India, are better protected from earthquakes, having learned safety basics and practiced disaster preparedness with the help of employees from Bechtel’s New Delhi office.

Employees worked with GeoHazards International, a California-based nonprofit organization that trained the volunteers as earthquake-safety advocates and helped them identify and reduce hazards on campus, create and implement a school disaster-management plan, and conduct preparedness drills for students and staff.

The training involved all of the school’s approximately 750 students, including kindergartners. For the younger kids, the volunteers developed an easy-to-follow safety story and provided disaster-safety coloring books; they also made presentations to older students that included videos with actual earthquake footage. The volunteers led a “hazard hunt” through the school’s classrooms, library, and laboratory, returning on subsequent weekends to repair the hazards they found.

Bechtel and GeoHazards volunteers will continue to conduct drills, work with the school on emergency-preparedness plans and safety brochures, and expand their efforts to include other area schools. 

 

CYCLING FOR A GOOD CAUSE

A 150-mile bicycle ride can be grueling—but enjoyable when its for a good cause. In April 2008, 65 Bechtel riders took part in the two-day BP MS Bike Tour from Houston to Austin, Texas, raising more than $56,000 to help find a cure for multiple sclerosis and to help people living with the disease. The most demanding portion of the course was the Bechtel Challenge Route, named as a part of the company’s sponsorship of the event. The route is known for its steep hills but also for the beautiful scenery through two Texas state parks.

 

Safety Gear for Volunteers

Bechtel’s Waste Treatment Plant (WTP) project in southeastern Washington state has extended the company’s passion for safety to the local branch of Habitat for Humanity. The project has donated 35 complete sets of “personal protective equipment” to the popular nonprofit organization, which builds housing for families in need. The gear, including hard hats, vests, safety glasses, and gloves, will be placed in Habitat for Humanity job trailers, where it will be available to all volunteers. In addition, Bechtel personnel are helping Habitat for Humanity update its safety guidelines.

Many WTP employees lend a hand at Habitat for Humanity, including Bechtel’s NextGen group, which volunteers its services several times a year.

The WTP project involves design and construction of something a little larger than a home—a massive plant to treat millions of liters of hazardous waste left over from the Cold War.

 

Housing Horses in Houston

More than 100 Bechtel employees in Houston and their family members have been designing, digging, lifting, and building — but not for a Bechtel project. For more than four years, they’ve been donating their time and skills to Habitat for Horses, a nonprofit organization that rescues, houses, and protects horses. Work has included fund-raising and building facilities including a tack room, a foaling shed, and a barn at the charity’s 27-acre (11-hectare) ranch in Galveston County, Texas. Although first planned in 2005, construction of the barn was put on hold numerous times as the charity worked to rescue displaced and injured horses as a result of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, fires in the Florida panhandle, and severe weather. In 2007, “We realized that the barn had been put on hold too long and that the existing barn was in bad shape,” explains Lauri Barr of Bechtel's Oil, Gas & Chemicals unit, which is based in Houston. “The horses really needed shelter.”

 

Project Spawns a New Wetland

Environmental sensitivities were paramount when Bechtel Jacobs Company planned a new road to be used during cleanup of a former nuclear production facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The final route avoided most environmentally sensitive areas. However, constructing 7.8 kilometers of road that crosses 13 streams made some impact unavoidable.

In addition to mitigating ecological intrusions and protecting plant and animal diversity while building the road, Bechtel Jacobs also created a new wetland and restored a stream. Working with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, the company built a bypass around a 1960s low dam that let Bear Creek flow freely again. As a result, fish, including the protected Tennessee dace, are starting to thrive in the stream. Bechtel Jacobs also built a new wetland behind the dam on 90 meters of original stream bed.

 

Turning a Design into (Virtual) Reality

When Bechtel officials at the Tacoma Narrows Bridge project near Seattle, Washington, wanted to keep the public up to date on construction progress, they turned to the company’s virtual reality lab. The result was a series of 3D virtual walkthroughs depicting construction of the longest suspension span built in the United States in more than three decades.

 Walkthroughs were created for each phase of the project, including caisson placement, tower construction, cable spinning, deck erection, and a final fly-through. Project officials used them in presentations and videos, and they were posted on the Web site of the Washington State Department of Transportation.

“When we’re dealing with the public, it’s easier to have something that visually explains what’s happening than it is to try to explain it,” said one project official. “We gave people a visual understanding of what to expect.” Now is the time.

 

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