Kellogg, Brown and Root
Encyclopedia
KBR, Inc. is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 engineering, construction and private military contracting company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....

, headquartered in Houston. The company also has large offices in Arlington, Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

, Newark, Delaware
Newark, Delaware
Newark is an American city in New Castle County, Delaware, west-southwest of Wilmington. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 31,454. Newark is the home of the University of Delaware.- History :...

 and Leatherhead, UK
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...

. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries
Dresser Industries
Dresser Industries was a multinational corporation headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States, which provided a wide range of technology, products, and services used for developing energy and natural resources...

 in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, The M. W. Kellogg Co., was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, to form Kellogg Brown & Root. KBR and its predecessors have won many contracts with the U.S. military, including during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

KBR is the largest non-union
Open shop
An open shop is a place of employment at which one is not required to join or financially support a union as a condition of hiring or continued employment...

 construction company in the United States. The company's corporate offices are in the KBR Tower
KBR Tower
KBR Tower is a 550 ft tall skyscraper in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States; it is a part of the Cullen Center complex. The KBR Tower has the headquarters of KBR....

 in Downtown Houston
Downtown Houston
Downtown Houston is the largest business district of Houston, Texas, United States. Downtown Houston, the city's central business district, contains the headquarters of many prominent companies. There is an extensive network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connecting the buildings of the district...

.

History

M.W. Kellogg

In 1901, Morris Kellogg founded The M. W. Kellogg Company in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The company was incorporated in 1905 and its headquarters was moved to Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City, New Jersey
Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

. Initially Kellogg’s main business was power plant construction and fabrication of power plant components, but the development of hammer forge welding
Forge welding
Forge welding is a solid-state welding process that joins two pieces of metal by heating them to a high temperature and then hammering them together. The process is one of the simplest methods of joining metals and has been used since ancient times. Forge welding is versatile, being able to join a...

 techniques helped ready the company to move into refining as the petroleum industry developed. Kellogg was announced the number one construction company for years 1993 to 1995. This is mainly due to their work in the Dulles Greenway.

Kellogg’s entry into process engineering initially focused on the Fleming cracking process, but in the 1920s Kellogg partnered with The Texas Company (Texaco
Texaco
Texaco is the name of an American oil retail brand. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owns the Havoline motor oil brand....

) and Standard Oil of Indiana to purchase the Cross thermal cracking process. Kellogg set up one of the first petroleum laboratories in the country in 1926 to commercialize and then license the technology. This led to Kellogg building some 130 units in the U.S. and abroad.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Kellogg worked with leading refiners on various technologies. For the war effort, these developments led to the construction of six hydroreformer units twenty fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products...

 units and the only complete refinery
Refinery
A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.-Types of refineries:Different types of refineries are as follows:...

 built during World War II. Even bigger than the refining work was K-25
K-25
K-25 is a former uranium enrichment facility of the Manhattan Project which used the gaseous diffusion method. The plant is located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on the southwestern end of the Oak Ridge Reservation.-History:...

, the gaseous diffusion
Gaseous diffusion
Gaseous diffusion is a technology used to produce enriched uranium by forcing gaseous uranium hexafluoride through semi-permeable membranes. This produces a slight separation between the molecules containing uranium-235 and uranium-238 . By use of a large cascade of many stages, high separations...

 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Oak Ridge is a city in Anderson and Roane counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, about west of Knoxville. Oak Ridge's population was 27,387 at the 2000 census...

 built as part of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...

. This period also included the development of the Benedict-Webb-Rubin (BWR) equation of state which has since become an industry mainstay and provided the basis for Kellogg’s lead in cryogenics
Cryogenics
In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. A person who studies elements under extremely cold temperature is called a cryogenicist. Rather than the relative temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit,...

.

The 1950s Kellogg technology expanded into steam pyrolysis
Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis is a thermochemical decomposition of organic material at elevated temperatures without the participation of oxygen. It involves the simultaneous change of chemical composition and physical phase, and is irreversible...

, Orthoflow fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products...

, phenol
Phenol
Phenol, also known as carbolic acid, phenic acid, is an organic compound with the chemical formula C6H5OH. It is a white crystalline solid. The molecule consists of a phenyl , bonded to a hydroxyl group. It is produced on a large scale as a precursor to many materials and useful compounds...

-from-cumene
Cumene
Cumene is the common name for isopropylbenzene, an organic compound that is an aromatic hydrocarbon. It is a constituent of crude oil and refined fuels. It is a flammable colorless liquid that has a boiling point of 152 °C...

 and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

-to-synthetic fuels technologies and the 1960s saw the growth in helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...

 recovery, ethylene
Ethylene
Ethylene is a gaseous organic compound with the formula . It is the simplest alkene . Because it contains a carbon-carbon double bond, ethylene is classified as an unsaturated hydrocarbon. Ethylene is widely used in industry and is also a plant hormone...

 and the development of Kellogg’s ammonia
Ammonia
Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . It is a colourless gas with a characteristic pungent odour. Ammonia contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to food and fertilizers. Ammonia, either directly or...

 process.

In 1970 Kellogg moved from New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...

 and in 1975, they completed the move by relocating the research and development lab as well. The '70s saw Kellogg become the first American contractor to receive contracts from the People’s Republic of China. Kellogg’s international work expanded with the major ammonia complexes in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 as well as LNG liquefaction plant in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...

 and 2 receiving terminals in the U.S., the world’s largest LPG plant in Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

 and four fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking
Fluid catalytic cracking is the most important conversion process used in petroleum refineries. It is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils to more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products...

 units in Mexico. The 1980s saw continuation of global activity in LNG and ethylene
Ethylene
Ethylene is a gaseous organic compound with the formula . It is the simplest alkene . Because it contains a carbon-carbon double bond, ethylene is classified as an unsaturated hydrocarbon. Ethylene is widely used in industry and is also a plant hormone...

 with millisecond furnace
Millisecond furnace
A Millisecond furnace is a device used for cracking naphtha into ethylene, by extremely short exposure to temperatures of about 900 degrees Celsius, followed by a rapid quenching below 750 degrees Celsius....

s starting up in the U.S.

Brown & Root

Brown & Root was founded in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 in 1919 by two brothers, George R. Brown
George R. Brown
George Rufus Brown was a prominent Houstonian entrepreneur. Brown led Brown & Root Inc. to become one of the largest construction companies in the world and helped to foster the political career of Lyndon B. Johnson. The George R. Brown Convention Center and the George R...

 and Herman Brown, with money provided by their brother-in-law, Daniel Root. The company began its operations by building roads in Texas.

One of its first large-scale projects, according to the book Cadillac Desert
Cadillac Desert
Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner, is a 1986 book published by Viking about land development and water policy in the western United States. Subtitled The American West and its Disappearing Water, it gives the history of the Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and their struggle...

, was building a dam on the Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

 Colorado River
Colorado River (Texas)
The Colorado River is a river that runs through the U.S. state of Texas; it should not be confused with the much longer Colorado River which flows from Colorado into the Gulf of California....

 near Austin
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...

 during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local Congressman
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....

, Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

. Brown & Root was the principal source of campaign funds after Johnson's initial run for Congress in 1937, in return for persuading the Bureau of Reclamation to change its rules against paying for a dam on land the federal government did not own, a decision that had to go all the way to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, according to Robert A. Caro's book The Path to Power. After other very profitable construction projects for the federal government, Brown & Root gave massive sums of cash for Johnson's first run for the U.S. Senate in 1941. Brown and Root reportedly violated IRS rules over campaign contributions, largely in charging off its donations as deductible company expenses, according to Caro. A subsequent IRS investigation threatened to bring criminal charges of illegal campaign donations against Brown & Root, as well as Johnson and others. Roosevelt himself told the IRS to back off and allowed Brown and Root to settle for pennies on the dollar.

During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Brown & Root built the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi , also known as Truax Field, is a naval base located six miles southeast of the central business district of Corpus Christi, in Nueces County, Texas, USA.-History:...

 and its subsidiary Brown Shipbuilding
Brown Shipbuilding
The Brown Shipbuilding Company was founded in Houston, Texas in 1942 as a subsidiary of Brown and Root by brothers Herman and George R. Brown to build ships for the US Navy during World War II....

 produced a series of warships for the U.S. Government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...

.

In 1947, Brown & Root built one of the world's first offshore oil platform
Oil platform
An oil platform, also referred to as an offshore platform or, somewhat incorrectly, oil rig, is a lаrge structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and process oil and natural gas, and to temporarily store product until it can be brought to shore for refining and marketing...

s.

According to Tracy Kidder
Tracy Kidder
John Tracy Kidder is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer of the 1981 nonfiction narrative, The Soul of a New Machine, about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation...

's Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...

-winning book Mountains Beyond Mountains
Mountains Beyond Mountains
Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World is a non-fiction, biographical work by American writer Tracy Kidder. The story traces the life of physician and anthropologist Paul Farmer. The book was a New York Times Notable Book for 2003.-External links:*...

, Brown & Root was a contractor in the Péligre Dam project
Lake Péligre
Lake Péligre is the second largest lake in Haiti, and is located in the Centre Department. Tracy Kidder describes it as "beautiful, blue waters set among steep, arid mountains"....

. The project was designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and financed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States
Export-Import Bank of the United States
The Export-Import Bank of the United States is the official export credit agency of the United States federal government. It was established in 1934 by an executive order, and made an independent agency in the Executive branch by Congress in 1945, for the purposes of financing and insuring...

.

Halliburton years

Following the death of Herman Brown, Halliburton Energy Services acquired Brown & Root in December 1962. According to Dan Briody
Dan Briody
Dan Briody is the author of the books The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money and The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of the Carlyle Group...

, who wrote a book on the subject, the company became part of a consortium of four companies that built about 85 percent of the infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

 needed by the Navy during the Vietnam War. At the height of the anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...

 movement of the 1960s, Brown & Root was derided as "Burn & Loot" by protesters.

In 1989, Halliburton acquired another major engineering and construction contractor, C. F. Braun & Co., of Alhambra California, and merged it into Brown & Root.

From 1995-2002, Halliburton KBR was awarded at least $2.5 billion to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP
LOGCAP
The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program provides contingency support to augment the US Army force structure means to adequately support its forces using private military companies.-History:...

).

The extent of their services included a vast array of logistical operations historically under the jurisdiction of the military. Such operations included laundry services, meal services (dining halls), entertainment (Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and cable
Broadband Internet access
Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....

 access), and recreation (basketball courts and gym equipment).

In September 2005, under a competitive bid contract it won in July 2005 to provide debris removal and other emergency work associated with natural disasters, KBR started assessment of the cleanup and reconstruction of Gulf Coast
Gulf Coast of the United States
The Gulf Coast of the United States, sometimes referred to as the Gulf South, South Coast, or 3rd Coast, comprises the coasts of American states that are on the Gulf of Mexico, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and are known as the Gulf States...

 Marine
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 and Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 facilities damaged in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

. The facilities include: Naval Station Pascagoula
Naval Station Pascagoula
Naval Station Pascagoula was a base of the United States Navy, in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The base officially closed November 15, 2006. The base's property, on Singing River Island in the Mississippi Sound at the mouth of the Singing River, was formally transferred to the Mississippi Secretary of...

, Naval Station Gulfport, the John C. Stennis Space Center
John C. Stennis Space Center
The John C. Stennis Space Center , located in Hancock County, Mississippi, at the Mississippi-Louisiana border, is NASA's largest rocket engine test facility.- History :...

 in Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, two smaller U.S. Navy facilities in New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...

 and others in the Gulf Coast region. KBR has had similar contracts for more than 15 years.

Formation of KBR, Inc.

Halliburton announced on April 5, 2007, that it had finally broken ties with KBR, which has been its contracting, engineering and construction unit as a part of the company for 44 years. The move was prefaced by a statement registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
United States Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States...

 on April 15, 2006, stating that Halliburton planned to sell up to 20 percent of its KBR stock on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

 (NYSE). On November 16, 2006, KBR shares were offered for the public in an Initial Public Offering
Initial public offering
An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

 with shares priced at $17. The shares closed up more than 22 percent to $20.75 a share on the first trading day.

On May 7, 2008, the company announced that it would acquire Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama. The city is the county seat of Jefferson County. According to the 2010 United States Census, Birmingham had a population of 212,237. The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Area, in estimate by the U.S...

-based engineering and construction firm BE&K
BE&K
BE&K, Inc., based in Birmingham, Alabama, is a global engineering and construction company. BE&K is named after its founders Peter Bolvig, William Edmonds, and Ted Kennedy and was founded in 1972 after the three men left the Birmingham based Rust International to start their own company. The...

 for $550 million. BE&K plans to remain headquartered in Birmingham.

Planned office facility

In January 2010 KBR announced plans to extend its lease and expand its presence in downtown Houston. The downtown expansion will replace previously announced plans to develop a KBR campus in West Houston. The new total of KBR leased space in downtown will be just over 1200000 square feet (111,483.6 m²) at completion.

Kosovo

In 1996, Brown & Root was awarded a contract to support U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops as part of the SFOR
SFOR
The Stabilisation Force was a NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force in Bosnia and Herzegovina which was tasked with upholding the Dayton Agreement. It replaced the previous force IFOR...

 operation in the Balkan region. This contract was extended to also include KFOR operations in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

 starting in 1999. Camp Bondsteel
Camp Bondsteel
Camp Bondsteel is the main base of the United States Army under KFOR command in Kosovo. Located near Uroševac in the eastern part of Kosovo, the base serves as the NATO headquarters for KFOR's Multinational Brigade East . The base is named after Vietnam War Medal of Honor recipient United States...

 in Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

 was constructed by the 94th Engineer Construction Battalion together with the private Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers. KBR is also the prime contractor for the operation of the camp. The camp is built mainly of wooden, semi permanent SEA (South East Asia) huts and is surrounded by a 2.5 meter high earthen wall. To construct the base two hills were lopped off and the valley between them was filled with the resulting material.

Afghanistan

KBR was awarded a $100 million contract in 2002 to build a new U.S. embassy in Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...

, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

, from the State Department.

KBR has also been awarded 15 Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP
LOGCAP
The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program provides contingency support to augment the US Army force structure means to adequately support its forces using private military companies.-History:...

) task orders worth more than $216 million for work under Operation Enduring Freedom, the military name for operations in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. These include establishing base camps at Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...

 and Bagram Air Base
Bagram Air Base
Bagram Airfield, also referred to as Bagram Air Base, is a militarized airport and housing complex that is located next to the ancient city of Bagram, southeast of Charikar in Parwan province of Afghanistan. The base is run by a US Army division headed by a major general. A large part of the base,...

 and training foreign troops from the Republic of Georgia.

Cuba

KBR has also been actively involved in the development of works in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

. Most notably sections of the U.S. Naval base in Guantanamo
Guantánamo
Guantánamo is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.Guantánamo is served by the Caimanera port and the site of a famous U.S. Naval base. The area produces sugarcane and cotton wool...

, completed in 2006. Camp 6, the newest facility built for detainees at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, is designed after a maximum-security penitentiary
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

 in the U.S.

Iraq

KBR employs more American private contractors and holds a larger contract with the U.S. government than does any other firm in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

. The company's roughly 14,000 U.S. employees in Iraq provide logistical support
Logistics
Logistics is the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of destination in order to meet the requirements of customers or corporations. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and...

 to the U.S. armed forces
United States armed forces
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...

.

Currently in 2011, KBR is defending a lawsuit stemming from the death of a U.S. soldier by claiming that Iraqi, not American, law should apply in determining a verdict. The civil case was filed in a Pennsylvania court against KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton, over the death of Army Sergeant Ryan Maseth, who was electrocuted while taking a shower on his base in Iraq. KBR was named the plaintiff by Maseth’s parents because the company held a maintenance contract from the Department of Defense for upkeep of the military installation.

Political connections and corruption

Following the end of the first Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

, led by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney served as the 46th Vice President of the United States , under George W. Bush....

, paid Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....

 subsidiary Brown & Root Services over $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones.

Some controversy arose in February 1999 when KBR was awarded a substantial contract to provide emergency support to US military operations in the Balkans, despite DynCorp having been awarded a contract, known as LOGCAP
LOGCAP
The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program provides contingency support to augment the US Army force structure means to adequately support its forces using private military companies.-History:...

 II, in 1994 to provide emergency support in exactly these sort of circumstances.

RIO, or Restore Iraqi Oil, was awarded to KBR without competition when the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...

 determined that KBR was "the only contractor that could satisfy the requirement for immediate execution of the plan". As of September 2006, hearings were still being conducted into the RIO project over possible billing, management, and procurement violations.

Another prime topic of interest is the Defense Contract Audit Agency
Defense Contract Audit Agency
The Defense Contract Audit Agency , under the authority, direction, and control of the United States Under Secretary of Defense , is responsible for performing all contract audits for the United States Department of Defense , and providing accounting and financial advisory services regarding...

 (DCAA) report on billing-methods for meals. The auditors knew about, but disregarded, the Army's requirement, whereas KBR was directed to have varying amounts of meals prepared at certain locations regardless of how many people actually used the service. Although KBR was paying for the food, the DCAA did not believe they should be able to charge the DoD for meals prepared but not served.

In June 2008, Charles M. Smith, the senior civilian Defense Department official overseeing the government's multibillion-dollar contract with KBR during the early stages of the war in Iraq said he was forced out of his job in 2004 for refusing to approve $1 billion in questionable charges to KBR. Smith refused to approve the payments because Army auditors determined that KBR lacked credible records to support more than $1 billion in spending. Smith stated, "They had a gigantic amount of costs they couldn’t justify." He said that following his action he was suddenly dismissed and according to media "his successors — after taking the unusual step of hiring an outside contractor to consider KBR’s claims — approved most of the payments he had tried to block."

In May 2010, it was reported that KBR was selected for a no-bid contract
No-bid contract
The term "no-bid contract" is a popular phrase for what is officially known as a "sole source contract". A sole source contract implies that there is only one person or company that can provide the contractual services needed, and any attempt to obtain bids would only result in one person or...

 worth as much as $568 million through 2011 for military support services in Iraq.

Shell companies in Cayman Islands

In March 2008, the Boston Globe reported that KBR had avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Medicare
Medicare (United States)
Medicare is a social insurance program administered by the United States government, providing health insurance coverage to people who are aged 65 and over; to those who are under 65 and are permanently physically disabled or who have a congenital physical disability; or to those who meet other...

 and Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...

 taxes by hiring workers through shell companies based in the tax haven
Tax haven
A tax haven is a state or a country or territory where certain taxes are levied at a low rate or not at all while offering due process, good governance and a low corruption rate....

 of the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...

. More than 21,000 people working for KBR in Iraq - including about 10,500 Americans - are listed as employees of two companies, Service Employers International Inc., and Overseas Administrative Services, which exist on the island only in computer files in an office.

KBR admitted that the companies were set up "in order to allow us to reduce certain tax obligations of the company and its employees." But KBR does claim the workers as its own with regards to the legal immunity extended to employers working in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

.

Bribing Nigerian officials

On February 6, 2009, the Justice Department announced KBR had been charged with paying "tens of millions of dollars" in bribes to Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

n officials in order to win government contracts, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is a United States federal law known primarily for two of its main provisions, one that addresses accounting transparency requirements under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and another concerning bribery of foreign officials.- Provisions and scope...

 (FCPA). A 22-page document filed in a Houston federal court alleged massive bribes in connection with the construction of a natural gas plant on Bonny Island requiring $7.5bn USD. KBR officials had no comment. KBR pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $402m USD in criminal fines, nearly all of which was covered by Halliburton. KBR and Halliburton also paid $177m USD in disgorgement of profits to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) due a civil complaint filed by the SEC relating to the FCPA charges.

Former CEO Albert Jackson Stanley, who ran KBR when it was a subsidiary to Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....

, was sentenced to 7 years in prison via plea agreement.

Waxman allegations

The Army's actions came under fire from California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 Congressman Henry Waxman
Henry Waxman
Henry Arnold Waxman is the U.S. Representative for , serving in Congress since 1975. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He is considered to be one of the most influential liberal members of Congress...

, who, along with Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

 Congressman John Dingell
John Dingell
John David Dingell, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1955 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...

, asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the U.S. Agency for International Development and The Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...

 were circumventing government contracting procedures and favoring companies with ties to the Bush administration
George W. Bush administration
The presidency of George W. Bush began on January 20, 2001, when he was inaugurated as the 43rd President of the United States of America. The oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George W...

. They also accused KBR of inflating prices for importing gasoline into Iraq. In June 2003, the Army announced that it would replace KBR's oil-infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...

 contract with two public-bid contracts worth a maximum total of $1 billion, to be awarded in October. However, the Army announced in October it would expand the contract ceiling to $2 billion and the solicitation period to December. As of October 16, 2003, KBR had performed nearly $1.6 billion worth of work. In the meantime, KBR has subcontracted with two companies to work on the project: Boots & Coots
Boots & Coots
Boots & Coots/IWC is one of the world's premier well control companies. Founded in 1978 by Red Adair's lieutenants, Asger "Boots" Hansen and the late Ed "Coots" Matthews, Boots & Coots International Well Control, Inc...

, an oil field emergency response firm that Halliburton works in partnership with (CEO Jerry L. Winchester was a former Halliburton manager) and Wild Well Control
Wild Well Control
Wild Well Control is a well control company based in Houston, Texas that has been worked to mitigate several high profile well control issues including the Kuwaiti oil fires and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill....

. Both firms are based in Texas.

Professional negligence

KBR's maintenance work in Iraq has been criticized after reports of soldiers electrocuted from faulty wiring. Specifically, KBR has been charged by the Army for improper installation of electrical units in bathrooms throughout U.S. bases. CNN reported that an Army Special Forces soldier, Staff Sergeant Ryan Maseth, died by electrocution in his shower stall on January 2, 2008. Army documents showed that KBR inspected the building and found serious electrical problems a full 11 months before his death. KBR noted "several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices." But KBR's contract did not cover "fixing potential hazards;" It covered repairing items only after they broke down. Maseth's family has sued KBR. In January 2009, the US Army CID
U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command
United States Army Criminal Investigation Command investigates felony crimes and serious violations of military law within the United States Army...

 investigator assigned to the case recommended that Maseth's official cause of death should be changed from "accidental" to "negligent homicide". KBR supervisors were blamed for failing to ensure electrical and plumbing work were performed by qualified employees, and for failure to inspect the work. In late January 2009, the Defense Contract Management Agency handed down a "Level III Corrective Action Request" to KBR. This is disseminated after a contractor is found being in a state of "serious noncompliance," and is one step from suspending or terminating a contract. Despite these issues, KBR was recently awarded a $35 million contract for major electrical work.

Employee safety

As of June 9, 2008, 81 American and foreign KBR employees and subcontractors have been killed, and more than 380 have been wounded by hostile action while performing services under the company's government contracts in Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

 and Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...

. Family members of injured or killed employees have sued the company in relation to the 2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush
2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush
The 2004 Iraq KBR convoy ambush was an attack by Iraqi insurgents on April 9, 2004 during the Iraq War on a convoy of United States supply trucks near the Baghdad International Airport...

.

Sexual assault and abuse allegations

Jamie Leigh Jones
Jamie Leigh Jones
Jamie Leigh Jones was an employee of KBR, an American engineering, construction and private military contracting company. She is notable for accusing then fellow KBR employees of drugging and gang-raping her on July 28, 2005, at Camp Hope, Baghdad, Iraq...

 testified at a Congressional hearing that she had been gang-raped by as many as seven co-workers in Iraq in 2005 when she was an employee of KBR, and then falsely imprisoned in a shipping container for 24 hours without food or drink. KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton at the time. Jones and her lawyers said that 38 women have contacted her reporting similar experiences while working as contractors in Iraq, Kuwait, and other countries. On September 15, 2009, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Jones, in a 2 to 1 ruling, and found that her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract. In August 2011, KBR sued Jones for two million dollars, saying that her lawsuit was fabricated and frivolous.

Jamie Leigh Jones's case led Senator Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....

 to propose an amendment to the defense appropriations bill, which was passed in October 2009, to allow employees of firms with government contracts access to the courts.

Mary Beth Kineston, an Ohio truck driver, said she was sexually harassed and groped by several KBR employees, and was later fired after reporting to the company the threats and harassment endured by female employees.

Jo Frederiksen, another female employee, filed a law suit against the company for allegedly being "inappropriately touched, stalked, intimidated and verbally harassed" during her time with the firm in 2003. According to Frederiksen, after she complained to the firm she was moved to an even more hostile location while some of her abusers were promoted. The lawsuit claimed "women are second-rate citizens provided for the pleasure of men" at the firm. Frederiksen also alleged a lack of oversight to "rampant illicit criminal behavior" related to prostitution and human trafficking by other KBR employees.

Human trafficking lawsuit

On August 28, 2008, defense contractor KBR, Inc. and a Jordanian subcontractor were accused of human trafficking in a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles. The suit alleged that 13 Nepali men were recruited by Daoud & Partners to work in hotels and restaurants in Jordan, but upon arrival all 13 men had their passports seized by the contractor and were sent to Iraq to work on the Al Asad Airbase. Twelve of the employees were abducted when their unprotected convoy was attacked by a group calling itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, while enroute to the base. Shortly thereafter, a video was released of one of the men being beheaded and the other 11 shot. The remaining employee, Buddi Prasad Gurung, claims to have been held against his will for 15 months, during which time he was forced to work at the base. Reuters quoted attorney Matthew Handley as saying, "It doesn't appear that any of them knew they were going to Iraq". KBR made no public comment on the lawsuit, but released a statement which stated in part that it, "in no way condones or tolerates unethical or illegal behaviour".

"Burn pits" lawsuits

More than 20 federal lawsuits naming KBR and seeking class-action status were filed in late 2008 and 2009 over the practice of operating "burn pits" at U.S. bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan and thus exposing soldiers to smoke containing dioxin, asbestos and other harmful substances. The pits are said to include "every type of waste imaginable," with items such as "tires, lithium batteries, Styrofoam, paper, wood, rubber, petroleum-oil-lubricating products, metals, hydraulic fluids, munitions boxes, medical waste, biohazard materials (including human corpses), medical supplies (including those used during smallpox inoculations), paints, solvents, asbestos insulation, items containing pesticides, polyvinyl chloride pipes, animal carcasses, dangerous chemicals, and hundreds of thousands of plastic water bottles."

A company statement responding to the allegations said that "at the sites where KBR provides burn pit services, the company does so... in accordance with the relevant provisions" of its contracts as well as "operational guidelines approved by the Army."

Legacy in Houston

Houston's convention center
George R. Brown Convention Center
The George R. Brown Convention Center opened on September 26, 1987 on the east side of Downtown Houston, Texas, United States.The center was named for the prominent Houstonian George R. Brown, an entrepreneur, civic leader and philanthropist. Brown’s Texas Eastern Corporation donated six of the 11...

 was named after company founder and namesake George R. Brown. Rice University's
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...

 Margaret Root Brown College, George R. Brown School of Engineering
George R. Brown School of Engineering
The George R. Brown School of Engineering is an academic school at Rice University in Houston, Texas. It contains the departments of Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computational and Applied Mathematics, Computer Science,...

, George R. Brown Hall, Alice Pratt Brown Hall
Shepherd School of Music
The Shepherd School of Music is a university school of music located on the campus of Rice University in Houston, Texas. Shepherd School is itself very selective, accepting overall about 10-15% of all graduate applicants and 15% of all undergraduate applicants...

 and Herman Brown Hall are all named for Brown and members of the Brown family, who have made significant monetary contributions to Rice and other Houston schools. A residence hall at Southwestern University
Southwestern University
Southwestern University is a private, four-year, undergraduate, liberal arts college located in Georgetown, Texas, USA. Founded in 1840, Southwestern is the oldest university in Texas. The school is affiliated with the United Methodist Church although the curriculum is nonsectarian...

is named after Herman Brown.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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