Major General George Washington Goethals was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 29, 1858. Amongst friends and family he was known as a serious and hard working boy, preferring his studies to frivolity. His family was poor and following high school, he put himself through a three-year degree at the College of the City of New York, paying for it by working nights. After graduating, Goethals applied for a position in America's most respected military academy, West Point, and was accepted in 1876. Four years later he graduated as a second-lieutenant and moved into the Corps of Engineers.
It was in the Engineers that he gained his invaluable experience constructing waterways, dams and bridges throughout the United States. His field work was also interspersed with desk duties in Washington DC. Such was his reputation as a superb engineer and leader, that President Roosevelt promoted him to the rank of colonel and appointed him as chairman and engineer-in-chief of the Isthmian Canal Commission in 1907 (he replaced John Stevens who resigned mainly as a result of exhaustion).
Goethals' dogged determination and capacity for hard work was legendary. For the seven years of construction in Panama he drove himself and his men to what seemed unreachable limits, resulting in the canal being built a year ahead of schedule. He did not let nature, geography or personal problems get in the way of progress. His team [V 007 / dynamited rock], dug through mud and sand, drained swamps to build locks and railroads, lakes and dams in order to join the two oceans. If a wall collapsed following a flood, it was rebuilt - in spite of many months' work being destroyed in a few hours - and if an earthquake shook construction to a standstill, all would continue afterwards, regardless. For this reason, he was not so much loved by his workers, rather he was respected and admired (when they saw him approaching in his motor-driven vehicle set on rail tracks, the men used to refer to it as 'the brain on wheels').
Throughout the seven years of construction, Goethals had to oversee on average some 39,000 men per annum. He was a born leader and therefore did the job brilliantly. When disputes broke out or men were disgruntled, he held tribunals every Sunday morning to resolve problems. He was the first known employer to deal with labor this way; unions were at that time still non-existent.
Goethals remained in Panama for another two years after 1914, when the canal was completed. He was appointed governor of the Canal Zone and exercised his talents of leadership as expertly as when he coordinated the construction of the canal. When the US got involved in World War I, he served as Quartermaster General, after which he resigned his commission. Until his death in January 1928, Goethals worked as a consulting engineer on major governmental projects such as the Port of New York.
