Guy Menefee Standifer
GUY MENEFEE STANDIFER
ENERGY, enterprise and loyal appreciation of the great possibilities of the Pacific Northwest, in the development of which he is a prominent participant, are the characteristics most emphasized in the career of G. M. Standifer, president of the G. M. Standifer Construction Corporation, of Portland, Oregon. He was born in Denison, Texas, the son of Isaac M. Standifer, a leading member of the Texas Bar, and of Minnie Belle (Menefee) Standifer. He was educated in the Denison public schools until the age of fifteen, when he entered into business life in connection with the lumber operations. He later engaged in the contracting business and became connected in the building of log railroads in the great pine woods forests of East Texas, in which business he contin-ued until 1906, when he went to the Pacific North-west. He continued in the sawmilling and logging business with the L. B. Menefee Lumber Company until 1910.
In that year, with associates, he organized and incorporated the G. M. Standifer Construction Corporation, to engage in railroad and general contracting business,
becoming the president of that company. The corporation first engaged in the filling of contracts for railroad building and for general contracting work all over the Pacific Coast, but more particularly in the development of the Pacific Northwest, building many miles of railroad for both the Hill and Harriman lines in that section of the country, as well as for private companies, and also building highways, bridges, tunnels and all similar work. In that branch of business, the company had an important and increasing activity, but in 1915 Mr. Standifer, realizing the great opportunities that were afforded for the building of ships in that section, erected a shipbuilding yard at Astoria, Oregon, and began the shipbuilding enterprise, which, under Mr. Standifer's personal executive management, has been advanced to an important place as one of the largest shipbuilding concerns in the Pacific Northwest. A second yard was
added at North Portland and one at Vancouver, Washington, and in 1918 the company built an-other big yard at Vancouver for the construction of steel ships.
Since starting in the shipbuilding business the company has been continuously active, enlarging its facilities and improving its equipment, until now all three yards are thoroughly equipped, having fifteen berths in all, with facilities for the construction of steel steamers of any type up to 20,000 tons gross register and up to 625 feet in length.
The company had extensive contracts with the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, including ten wooden freight steamers of 3,500 tons deadweight capacity; fifteen steel freight steamers, each of 9,500 tons deadweight, with turbine engines, to be built on the Isherwood system; twelve composite (steel and wood) freight steamers of 3,500 tons deadweight capacity; and four wooden cargo hulls, 3,500 tons capacity, Ferris type, to be built at the North Portland yard. Also building Diesel type motorships for Libby, McNeil & Libby and others.
