He never received a formal education past sixth grade, yet Robert Gilmour “R.G.” LeTourneau (1888–1969) became known as the “dean of earthmoving” due to his inventions for the excavation industry, obtaining nearly 300 patents. He earned another nickname: “God’s businessman.”
LeTourneau was born in 1888 in Richford, Vermont to a religious family. However, he rejected religion when he was young. He returned to his faith when he was 16 and dedicated his life to Christianity.
When LeTourneau was 14, he left home for Minnesota, then moved to Portland, Oregon, and then to Stockton, California, working at odd jobs with skills such as carpentry, welding, and ironworking. In 1911, he started up an auto mechanic shop with a partner in Stockton before called to duty in World War I.
Due to a neck injury suffered in a race car accident, LeTourneau never went to war. He served as a maintenance assistant at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California.
After he returned to Stockton, he discovered that his business partner had drank away all the business’s profits, and he was forced into another line of work. He helped clear a rancher’s field and there had a revelation for a better method to clear land. He found ways to clear fields, move, and grade earth and, in 1929, incorporated his business as R.G. LeTourneau, Inc.
His business quickly grew, and soon he worked on major projects across the country, including Boulder Highway to the Hoover Dam in Nevada. By 1933, LeTourneau gave up doing the work himself to focus strictly on manufacturing his inventions. In 1935, he opened a plant in Peoria, Illinois near the Caterpillar headquarters, the company that made engines for his tractors.
Earth-Moving Inventions
As LeTourneau’s business grew, he invented several machines, including the electric wheel, the bulldozer, log picker, tree crusher, air crane, power log skidder, and airplane tow. He also devised a two-wheeled tractor called the “Tournapull,” as well as low-pressure heavy-duty [designed for heavy equipment and machinery] rubber tires, and the first mobile offshore oil platform.With World War II, his equipment became vital for the war effort. His factories produced nearly 70 percent of the earth-moving equipment used by Allied forces to build roads, airports, and military bases.
During his commercial ventures, LeTourneau maintained his religious dedication and spoke about Christianity around the world, as well as donating money to religious and missionary efforts. “For 25 years or more, I’ve been traveling this land of ours and a few foreign countries trying to teach and preach by word of mouth and example, that a Christian businessman owes as much to God as a preacher does,” LeTourneau wrote in his autobiography.
In fact, LeTourneau’s personal policy was to live off 10 percent of his profits and give the remaining 90 percent for Christian efforts. He sold his company in 1953 for around $30 million. Even after he donated $10 million to educational and religious causes in 1959, the LeTourneau Foundation was still worth $40 million.
LeTourneau also founded the LeTourneau Christian Center in New York to help spread Christianity. In 1946, he and his wife founded the LeTourneau Technical Institute inside an unused military hospital in Longview, Texas. Then in 1961, the Christian liberal arts and technical school was renamed LeTourneau College.
His legacy might be that, in keeping with his faith, LeTourneau kept clear of the extravagant lifestyle his success could have enabled. He spent much of his time designing machinery or overseeing his employees. LeTourneau continued working on engineering equipment and spreading gospel through his 70s. He passed away at the age of 80 in 1969 after suffering from a stroke.
