Bethlehem Steel Homer Research Labs (mid-1960s build, post-bankruptcy donation to Lehigh)

The other thing — we went to the corporate dining room, and Gordon was very proud of his corporate dining room. At Bethlehem Steel, we had one of the most expensive research laboratories in the country, built in the mid-60s — six hundred million dollars, it'd be billions and billions today — to build this Homer Research Labs up on top of the mountain overlooking the Bethlehem Steel plant and Lehigh University. When Beth went bankrupt, they basically gave it to Lehigh University, so now it's the Lehigh University facility. They had a beautiful cafeteria, and I would go up there sometimes for lunch, overlooking the top of the mountain. But we passed the executive dining room, and I saw strawberries in there the size of tennis balls. I've never seen — today you actually see some of these things at Costco, but back then this was something that my eyes bugged out to see. Of course, I never got to eat in there. The guy who was vice president of research was an MIT grad from this department. The management took care of themselves at Bethlehem Steel. In the 1930s, when Bethlehem Steel was losing money, six of the top ten paid executives in the United States worked for Bethlehem Steel — and they were losing money. Eugene Grace got a multi-million-dollar profit because it was all based on number of tons poured, not profit made.