At 100, lifelong Idahoan reflects on a life well-lived, career at Morrison Knudsen
Bob Woodhead doesn’t really want me to write this column.
But his wife’s sister-in-law sent a news tip to the Idaho Statesman that a World War II veteran was turning 100, and I couldn’t pass it up.
I thought it would make a “good news” column, a nice distraction from the state Legislature and tariff terrors.
To be honest, I thought I was going to focus on his World War II service (which included a year in China with the Army Air Force), Greatest Generation and all that, but he wanted no part of it, explaining that he wasn’t any more special than any of the other millions who fought in the war. And certainly not deserving of recognition more than the hundreds of thousands who never came back, including his own brother.
“A lot of it I don’t want in the newspaper,” he told me. (This was edited for a family publication. Bob and I are kindred souls when it comes to the use of colorful language.)
His humility is genuine.
Bob reluctantly agreed to let me interview him at his home in Meridian, with the caveat that we just have a chat and he can talk about what he wants to talk about, and leave out anything he doesn’t want to talk about.
What he was OK to talk about was his 40-year career at Morrison Knudsen, a homegrown Boise civil engineering and construction firm that got its start building the Hoover Dam and went on to work on other large projects, such as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
“There’s too many people in Boise that don’t even know there was a Morrison Knudsen,” he said. “How they don’t know, with the (Morrison Center) theater and with the park (Ann Morrison Park), is beyond me, but it’s … surprising.”
Bob spent 40 years at Morrison Knudsen until his retirement in 1986.
His first big job with MK was working on a project to tear out the old trestle bridge going across the Great Salt Lake.
He was involved in building the first Minuteman missile facility in Sedalia, Missouri. MK went on to build every Minuteman facility in the U.S.
Bob also worked on the vertical assembly building at Cape Kennedy where rockets were put together, as well as building airfields, docks and harbors in Vietnam during the war.
Bob directed my attention to a 1970 letter hanging on his wall in his study from Navy Rear Adm. W.M. Enger thanking Bob for his “outstanding professional performance” for his role in “the greatest civilian construction program ever attempted under actual combat conditions,” which took place in Vietnam.
Bob eventually became the executive vice president and a director at MK, overseeing all construction projects both domestically and internationally.
“It was just absolutely the most marvelous company you could ever possibly believe,” he said. “It was an absolutely marvelous, marvelous company.”
Rocky start
It was a career that Bob thought had been cut short early on.
As Bob tells it, just a few days after getting married, he reported to work on a job to redo the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park in 1950. After about 20 minutes in the office, none other than MK founder and owner Harry Morrison showed up unexpectedly. (Just a few years later, Harry Morrison would grace the cover of Time magazine, which described him as “the man who has done more than anyone else to change the face of the earth.”)
Morrison drove Bob up to the job site and asked him a lot of questions about what they were doing and how much it was costing. Bob couldn’t provide good answers since he was new to the job.
On the drive back from the job site, according to Bob, when they got about 3 miles from the remote cabin office, Morrison pulled the car over and said to Bob:
“Mr. Woodhead, if I ever see you on one of our jobs again, you better know what’s going on. Get out.”
So Morrison kicked Bob out of the car 3 miles from the office, leaving him to walk back.
Bob said he ended up telling his new wife they had to leave, since he had just been fired. But he knew it would take a few days for someone to replace him, so they stayed.
A few days later, Bob received a letter from the senior VP saying Morrison had authorized a $50 a month raise for him.
Bob said Morrison never mentioned the incident again.
And Bob — a lifelong Idahoan, born in Wendell, grew up between Jerome and Twin Falls, and graduated from Jerome High School — stayed with the company for four decades.
Secret to living a long life
I asked him what his secret was to living a long life.
“Having a glass of Glenfiddich every night,” he joked. Although, he admits, that’s the only thing he ever allowed himself to indulge in once in a while.
Seriously, though, his father and his whole family all had diabetes, and seeing them suffer with it put him on a healthy diet. Cheerios with a little fruit every morning (another thing we share), and never any white bread or desserts in the house.
He said he weighs the same as he did when he graduated from high school.
I told him he looks healthier than some 60-year-olds I’ve seen, and he called me a liar.
He said he was never a good athlete, but he was a great tennis player in high school, and he continued to exercise and did a lot of walking with his dogs.
Advice for the younger generations
Any advice for the younger generations?
“They wouldn’t agree with me, but I would suggest to them that they dress differently and cut their … hair,” he said. “I shouldn’t say things like that. But I get annoyed at looking at people in today’s world.”
When I visited him at his home, he was sharply dressed in a casual dress shirt, vest and corduroys.
“One thing my folks taught me was to never leave my bedroom unless I was fully dressed,” he said.
I love that advice. It goes along with the advice of U.S. Navy Adm. William H. McRaven to start every day by making your bed.
As I was wrapping up our interview, Bob said he hoped he hadn’t insulted me or hurt my feelings.
I told him that would be hard to do.
“Well, then, I’ll try harder,” he said.
If you’re reading this, you know that Bob gave me the OK to run it, however reluctantly.
In honor of Bob today, I’ll be getting fully dressed before I leave my bedroom in clothes that are a little nicer than usual (I already got a haircut on Sunday), and I’ll go downstairs and have a bowl of Cheerios with blueberries for breakfast. And tonight (after work, of course), I just might raise a glass of Glenfiddich and toast to Bob Woodhead.
Happy 100th.
