Word: kaisers
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...River seemed an unlikely place to make a major test of Western investment faith and prospects in the new, fiercely nationalist countries of Africa, but so it was. Meeting in Accra, President Nkrumah's Ghana government and a consortium of aluminum companies headed by U.S. Aluminum Maker Edgar Kaiser signed a historic agreement. Under the deal, Kaiser will raise $178 million to build an aluminum smelter. Ghana will supply the power by building a $168 million dam on the Volta River. "It could mean to Ghana what TVA and the railroads meant to the U.S., coming all at once...
...Kaiser is so bullish about Hawaii's future that this year he opened a $13.5 million Permanente Cement plant with a capacity (1.7 million barrels annually) just about equaling the present cement consumption of Hawaii. He is confident that new buildings will rise to use his cement, but his move got him into a feud with Hawaii's powerful Dillingham family, which owns a share of a huge cement plant. Kaiser has also built the $4 million Kaiser Medical Center, the islands' most modern hospital, has built two clinics and is planning a third to accommodate...
...Kaiser has made little money on his projects, which have been financed by loans and vast transfusions from his industrial empire. But he is confident that profits will come, is gradually paring down the traditionally high cost of Hawaiian construction by buying in large quantities, adopting efficiency techniques, using such local materials as coral (for cement) and volcanic cinder (for building blocks...
Trouble in Paradise. But not all has been smooth in paradise. Besides taking on the Dillingham family in what Hawaiians call "the Battle of the Millionaires," Kaiser has had a go at almost everyone. His pressure (usually successful) in pushing through zoning laws to suit his projects has angered many residents. He has tangled publicly with the doctors in his hospital (over their salaries), the Coast Guard (his $225,000 catamaran, since turned in for a smaller one, could not pass inspection for commercial use), the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation (Hawaii Kai will replace large crop areas), the Hawaii Yacht...
Despite the squabbles, most Hawaiians look on Kaiser with the same mixture of awe, fascination and affection that they accord their smoldering volcanoes. His capacity for work is enormous. He is up before 5 a.m., begins inspecting his projects almost immediately, keeps an active hand in his widespread interests by daily telephone calls to the U.S., where his son Edgar has taken over the main direction of the Kaiser empire. He is putting the finishing touches on a $1,000,000 house for himself on Maunalua Bay. It has a YMCA-size swimming pool, a restaurant-size kitchen, built...