Jacques S. Yeager, ex-UC regent who led an influential construction firm, dies at 94

Jacques S. Yeager, a former University of California regent who ran an influential construction business that dramatically expanded California’s highways and left a mark on the state’s political landscape, died Wednesday. Yeager was 94.

Yeager was the president of E.L. Yeager Construction Co., a company that his father started in 1919. It became one of California’s largest contractors, according to a 1991 UC Berkeley report. In its earliest days, the company built parking lots and streets in San Bernardino, but it eventually moved on to more ambitious projects. The firm built part of historic Route 66, the 15 Freeway and the 91 Freeway. In 2010, the state Assembly recognized those contributions to the state’s freeways by naming the interchange at the 60 and 15 freeways after the company.

E.L. Yeager Construction was widely lauded for its quick work in repairing two 80-foot bridges on the 5 Freeway at Gavin Canyon that were damaged in the Northridge earthquake in January 1994. The company earned a $4.8-million bonus for finishing the repairs a month ahead of schedule.

Yeager was named a UC regent in 1988 and served until 1994.

“I’m absolutely thrilled and want to thank all the people in the Inland Empire who sent in all the letters to support me to the governor. This is a lifetime ambition,” Yeager said at the time.

Yeager, a Republican, helped push forward a successful campaign in the early 1950s to turn UC’s agricultural outpost in Riverside into a full-blown campus. Yeager made donations to UC Riverside throughout his career, creating an endowed chair in bioengineering, as well as an environmental research fund and endowed chair.

“The Riverside native and UC Berkeley alumnus spoke volumes in his active and generous support for UCR’s programs,” UC Riverside said in a statement.

natalie.kitroeff@latimes.com