Movers of Men and Mountains

A high school drop-out, a troubled teen, and a self-taught member of the school of hard-knocks, R. G. LeTourneau overcame these early failures and rose to prominence in the field of manufacturing and construction. Through a combination of enterprise, inventive genius, and Christian faith and commitment, LeTourneau became a successful and wealthy industrialist who also sponsored a variety of works involving missions and education, including the founding of LeTourneau College, a Christian liberal arts and technical school.

There were many influences on LeTourneau that steered him toward a life of business and Christian missionary work. His early days of working as a young teenager for foundries provided him with lessons that would stead him well in the business world years later. He shares two lessons provided for him by his supervisor, Mr. Hill, that remained with him the rest of his working life. One came when Hill told him not to work harder but faster, and the other came when Hill found him using only the middle of a file instead of maximizing its potential by using the full length of it with each stroke:

Two priceless lessons that have worked for me all my life. When I was hiring out for pay, I made it a point of stepping along a little faster and finding ways to do a job a little quicker. When I started building my own machinery, I became one of the first outside the aviation industry to use my own airplane to serve

Related Essays

Two Stories by David Wong Louie Two stories by David Wong Louie, "Social Science" and "The Movers" use houses and men's relationship to them as their central metaphors. .... (2036 8 )

Status & Role of Women .... sobriety of her own (Welter 2). ...., the "movers, the doers, the actors" needed women to be their "passive, submissive responders" (Welter 3). That women were .... (987 4 )

The Cult of True Womanhood .... sobriety of her own (Welter 2). ...., the "movers, the doers, the actors" needed women to be their "passive, submissive responders" (Welter 3). That women were .... (986 4 )

Willa Cather's Woman Centered Fiction The significance of the .... is, the characters seek to resolve their feelings toward the .... in their .... important because her work consistently positions women as the prime movers of action .... (2032 8 )

Willa Cather's Fiction When Willa Cather left home and went to col .... women and ..... Yet (unlike so many male writers of high reputation) she creates a number of women characters who are not merely the prime movers of narrative .... (2268 9 )

underprivileged people" (LeTourneau 42). When he was somewhat older, LeTourneau considered being a missionary or minister, but a priest prayed with him and told him that God needs businessmen too. LeTourneau never looked back. Throughout his business career, LeTourneau exhibited business practices which exemplified the Christian work ethic. For instance, he always gave ten percent of his income to the Church and, once, when he did not have enough money he paid his tithe to the church before paying his employees. God's influence on LeTourneau often made him exhibit business practices that were Christian in nature, like the time he nearly went bankrupt because of his business partner Parks. At first angry and embittered, LeTourneau sought God's solace and discovered he needed to be working for spiritual things more than material things "I know that when I returned to the garage it was with a new attitude. I had been furious at Parks for the weaknesses of his that had caused all the troubled, and had wanted nothing to do with him. Now, having been shown the light, I was able to use my influence, with the help of God, in getting him straightened out. He became his old personable self, and sales began to pick up" (LeTourneau

Category: Literature - M