Page "Kaiser Permanente" Paragraph 46

Garfield returned to Los Angeles for further study at County-USC with the intent of entering private practice.

However, in March 1938, Consolidated Industries ( a consortium led by the Kaiser Company ) initiated work on a contract for the upper half of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington state, and took over responsibility for the thousands of workers who had worked for a different construction consortium on the first half of the dam.

Edgar Kaiser, Henry's son, was in charge of the project.

To smooth over relations with the workers ( who had been treated poorly by their earlier employer ), Hatch and Ordway persuaded Edgar to meet with Garfield, and in turn Edgar persuaded Garfield to tour the Grand Coulee site.

Garfield subsequently agreed to reproduce at Grand Coulee Dam what he had done on the Colorado River Aqueduct project.

He immediately spent $ 100, 000 on renovating the decrepit Mason City Hospital and hired seven physicians.