The concrete Industry lost a leader on March 20. A. James Clark, chairman, Clark Enterprises, passed away at his home in Easton, Md., leaving behind a rich legacy of concrete construction projects including stadiums (Orioles Park and Camden Yards, Petco Park in San Diego, Miller Park in Milwaukee and Nationals Park in Washington); convention centers in Boston, Miami, and Nashville; Walter Reed Medical Center; and the building that houses the School of American Ballet and dormitory facilities for the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. His company is credited with being a major force transforming the Washington D.C. skyline. According to a New York Times obituary:
After graduating from the University of Maryland with a bachelor of science degree in engineering, he was hired by the George Hyman Construction Company in 1950. He continued taking business courses, he said in a rare interview with the business magazine Warfield’s in 1989, because “I did not want to go out at 5:30 in the morning with my stocking cap and my navy pea coat on and shoot lines and grades for the rest of my life.”
Mr. Clark became the company’s president in 1969. He formed Omni Construction in 1977 as a nonunion alternative and merged it with Hyman in 1996 as Clark Construction.
Born Dec. 2, 1927 in Richmond, Va., to humble beginnings, Clark amassed a fortune Forbes magazine estimated at 1.4 billion. As a philanthropist,Clark became a benefactor to both his Alma mater and Johns Hopkins University.
A note on the Clark Enterprises website states that the company:
"will continue to pursue his mission and goals inspired by the values of honesty, integrity and dedication to quality, values that Jim Clark brought to work each and every day."
