xX UTAH INTERNATIONAL: A BIOGRAPHY OF A BUSINESS Utah Construction aggressively into mining ventures, a number of which the company had already undertaken during the 1940s. In 1951 the directors also hired Edmund Littlefield as financial vice president. Littlefield, though a young man, had already made a distinguished career for himself in the petroleum and milk processing businesses, and he joined Utah Construction only after the board agreed to grant him an independent hand in managing the company’s financial affairs. After Littlefield spent seven successful years in administering the company’s finances, in 1958 the directors named him executive vice president and general manager. Littlefield managed the company quite differently from Christensen. Where Christensen tended to keep colleagues and the board in the dark about both plans and results, Littlefield insisted on openness with all of his associates. In 1959, under Littlefield’s direction, the company moved its corporate headquarters to San Francisco where it had operated a subsidiary office since early in the century. From its San Francisco offices, the company moved aggressively to construct and mine throughout the world, generally in collaboration with other firms. Construction projects included Minuteman silos in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska and irrigation works in Bangladesh, India, and Australia. Mining operations included uranium oxide in Wyoming, iron in Peru and Australia, and coal on the Navajo Reservation. Eventually, after finally tiring of the uncertainties associated with construction projects, Littlefield and the other company officers agreed to abandon that part of the business. Construction had always carried a heavy risk, but during the 1960s the company’s construction profits shrank while its mining profits grew. After taking measures to revive the income from construction, Littlefield negotiated the sale of that part of the business to Fluor Utah Engineers & Constructors. Still, the company continued to increase its mining activities. In 1976 the company, renamed Utah International in 1971, ranked first among United States mining companies in earnings and first in market value of its shares. In 1976 the company merged with General Electric.