Industrialists: The Man Who Always Hurried

More in awe than anger, a competitor once declared that Henry John Kaiser was successful because he was ignorant—"he never knew what he couldn't do." Kaiser put it another way: "If I don't dream I'll make it, I won't even get close." Whatever the reason for his success, Henry Kaiser, who died last week at 85 while asleep at his home in Hawaii, put together a remarkable complex of companies that turn out 300 kinds of products in 180 plants in 41 countries and have assets of nearly $3 billion.

Kaiser's achievements were...