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August 2, 2018

Harold Hill created a lot of buildings — and a lot of construction careers

By BENJAMIN MINNICK
Journal Construction Editor

Hill

Harold Hill was involved in building and developing nearly 4,000 buildings, but perhaps his biggest accomplishment was mentoring others who would go on to start their own construction companies.

Hill, a resident of Mercer Island, died last week at the age of 94.

Some of the people he mentored were Jeff Foushee and Loch Anderson (Foushee & Associates), Roger Collins (Sierra Construction), Dick Winter (R.C. Winter Co.), George Minnear (Poe Construction), Gid Palmer (SDL, Trammell Crow and Microsoft), George Leyton (Seaborn Construction) and Joe Simmons (Joseph S. Simmons Construction).

“Harold was a great, great man,” said Collins. Collins dug ditches for Hill during college, became an employee, and later partnered and built projects for him through Sierra Construction. Collins and his brother Bob founded Sierra in 1986 after he left Harold W. Hill Construction Co.

Roger Collins said Hill was instrumental in bringing tilt-up concrete construction to the Northwest. Collins learned the technique from Hill and it remains Sierra's bread-and-butter today.

Joe Simmons worked for seven years as an estimator and project manager for Hill, and at one point informed Hill that he wanted to spend his entire career working for him.

In a 1998 DJC interview, Simmons said he was shocked when Hill told him he would have to leave that job someday.

“There was hardly anybody who didn't work for him who didn't go out and start his own business,” Simmons said. “He had no problem that you were going to work for him for awhile and then you were going to leave.”

“Harold was really the guy who helped me so much,” Simmons said.

Hill was born Sept. 5, 1923, in Sedalia, Missouri, and started working at age 11, during the Depression.

He attended the University of Kansas for two years but left to serve on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific during World War II.

After the war, he returned to the university and earned degrees in architecture and engineering. He also met his wife of 69 years, Mary Frances Jennings, at the school.

The couple moved to Montana after graduation, and Mary taught school in Great Falls. They married in 1949 in Bozeman and then moved to Seattle for a fresh start.

The couple and their two sons, John and Stephen, settled into a small West Seattle house and spent summers in a cabin on Vashon Island. They bought a vacant lot on Mercer Island in 1963, and Hill designed their new home for it.

Hill was hired by an international construction company and worked on high-profile projects such as the Alaskan Way Viaduct. He later joined Hugh Ferguson and became Ferguson's right-hand man at Hugh S. Ferguson Construction Co., an early adopter of tilt-up construction.

Hill left Ferguson in 1968 to start Harold W. Hill Construction Co. and would later stop construction to focus on commercial development. He formed Hill-Raaum-Pietromonaco in 1975, which last year split into two companies: Hill Investment Co. and Pietromonaco Properties.

Mark Scalzo, CEO of Hill Investment, said Hill liked making deals where everyone came out ahead.

“Nothing gave him more pleasure than to see other people succeed who he was affiliated with,” Scalzo said.

Scalzo said one of Hill's remarkable deals was buying the 1201 Building on First Avenue South in 1977 for $500,000, just after the Kingdome was built nearby.

“No one, including him, knew the impact of how the Sodo District would be transformed,” Scalzo said.

The building is across from Safeco Field and has been home to Pyramid Alehouse for nearly 25 years.

Hill retired in the mid-1990s but continued to buy properties.

“He loved owning and building real estate but it's not how he defined himself in any way,” Scalzo said. “He referred to himself as a simple guy from Kansas.”

Collins said he learned from Hill that you can be successful in business and still be a good person and family man.

“Harold was a guy who treated people fairly throughout his life,” Collins said. “He was one of the good guys that did well.”

One obituary said the Hills had thousands of friends and an active social life, but Harold's idea of “heaven” was having cheap wine and pretzels on the porch of his Vashon cabin.

Hill is survived by Mary, his sons, and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held 2 p.m. Aug. 7 at Emmanuel Church on Mercer Island, at 4400 86th Ave. S.E.


 


Benjamin Minnick can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.




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