A. James Clark, who built one of the country's largest private construction companies, died Friday in his home. He was 87 years old.
The billionaire died of congestive heart failure in Easton, Maryland, the Washington Post reported. Dubbed the King of Concrete, Clark amassed his fortune building some of the most recognizable landmarks in Washington D.C., including
FORBES estimates that his net worth was about $1.4 billion at the time of his death. Clark's eponymous company,
A reclusive billionaire, he rarely gave interviews or spoke about his wealth. “I’ve always kept a low profile,” he told the business publication Warfield’s in 1989, “and I like it that way.”
He grew up earning 10 cents an hour working on his grandmother's Virginia farm, according to the Post. In 1950, he joined a small construction company working for $65 per week. In about a decade, he was the CEO of what today is his eponymous company.
As a young man he couldn't afford studying architecture at Cornell University — his dream school — so he commuted to the University of Maryland. He gave $15 million in 1994 to create the A. James Clark School of Engineering at his alma mater.
Clark served on the George Washington University Board of Trustees from 1988 to 1993, according to a release by the school confirming his death. His company built several recent buildings at the school, including a $275 million science and engineering hall. A generous philanthropist, he created the Clark Scholars program at the school in 2011, an $8 million gift that gives full scholarships to top engineering students at GW. He also earned an honorary doctorate of engineering from GW in 2010.
"We can take solace from the fact that his legacy here will live on for generations to come," Steven Knapp, the president of George Washington University said in a statement.
