Worldwide contractor likes NU graduates
What makes those NU grads so good?
From a conversation with Ken Stinson, chairman of Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc.
We want to make our community a better place. For us, that’s the big picture. We do this in a variety of ways. We give to local social-service organizations. We give to civic initiatives, like the TD Ameritrade Park and the CenturyLink Center. We give to the Kroc Center, the big Salvation Army facility here in Omaha.
But education – particularly post-secondary education – occupies a special place in the philosophy of the company. We’ve given something in excess of $10 million to the University of Nebraska Foundation. We believe that our country is going to succeed or not in the future based on the quality of our education.
We’ve had a longtime affiliation with the University of Nebraska. It’s in the state in which we’re headquartered. Our relationship also is strong because many of our employees graduated from there – we currently have about 600 employees who are NU grads. And they’re good employees. Our business units on the West Coast, in particular, have regularly recruited students out of the University of Nebraska over the years because they like their work ethic and good education.
Supporting engineering is one of our primary interests. So the Peter Kiewit Institute at the university is one of the fruits of our philanthropy that’s closest to our hearts. We’ve had a very special relationship with the institute since its inception. I really think you have to give Walter Scott, chairman emeritus of Peter Kiewit Sons’, Inc., a tremendous amount of credit for laying the foundation for the idea for it in the first place, pushing to have such a high-quality institute and then raising a significant amount of money from our company and from others. Did you know that the first engineer hired by Peter Kiewit was Walter Scott’s father? He was a University of Nebraska engineering grad.
A number of NU grads have ended up with us in senior positions. Two doors down from me is Rick Lanoha. He’s a pretty young guy. He’s president of Kiewit Energy Group. Dave Miles is another. He’s an executive vice president of Kiewit Infrastructure Group and is relocating here to Omaha to run a big part of our regional business. Doug Glaser is a division manager and another NU grad. He’s a very smart guy, and also a very big guy. He’s actually a former All-American offensive lineman at Nebraska. I’m 6-foot-2, and I’m still looking up at him! Chris Loeffler is another one of our senior guys, a division manager, and he’s also a graduate.
We’re proud of our relationship with the University of Nebraska. We support education because we see our philanthropic endeavors as an investment – not just in the future of our company, but in the future of our state and our country.
Student support is a top priority of the Campaign for Nebraska. If you’d like to help University of Nebraska students – and in particular, those at the Peter Kiewit Institute in Omaha – please consider giving online or contact the University of Nebraska Foundation at 800-432-3216.
