Alden P. Yates; Succeeded Schultz as Head of Bechtel

Alden P. Yates, who succeeded George P. Schultz as president of Bechtel Group Inc. in 1983, died Wednesday of cancer at Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center in San Francisco. He was 60.

Shultz, who resigned from Bechtel to become Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, and Yates are the only non-Bechtel family members who have held the presidency of the parent company.

After graduating from Stanford and serving in the Coast Guard, Yates launched a 35-year Bechtel career in 1953. His first assignment was as a field engineer at Pacific Gas & Electric’s Morro Bay steam power plant. He then served on a variety of projects in the power, civil and mining fields of Bechtel’s worldwide engineering and construction organization and in 1970 became a vice president.

He became manager of a petroleum and chemical division based in Kuwait in 1976, and by 1980 he was based in London in charge of three Bechtel divisions and a member of the company’s executive committee.

Yates was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the California Business Roundtable and the San Francisco Opera Assn.