Biography|Claes Björck — The Falls That Named the Town He Came From

People treat Skanska's American-made chief executive as a product of New York tunnels.

He came from a river town that takes its name from a troll and a waterfall.

Claes G. Björck was born on 9 June 1948.

He grew up in Trollhättan, in western Sweden, on the Göta älv, in the small industrial city where Saab built cars.

The public face of that town is the gorge in front of you.

Trollhättefallen drop about 32 metres through the old cataract channel of the river.

Most of the year the water is diverted through the Hojum and Olidan power stations on the east bank.

On scheduled release days the river is allowed back into the rock, and the town stands on the bridges to watch.

Björck later described the place, in a 2003 construction-industry interview, as a small town in western Sweden that made the Saab automobile, just after the Second World War.

His father ran a small construction business, mainly equipment rental and repairs.

During bachelor's studies in Trollhättan the family firm needed him, and he left school to help.

Fifteen months of military service followed.

Skanska called while he was still in uniform.

He was 21 when the offer arrived, in 1968.

He finished the engineering work in evening classes after he was already on the payroll.

The house he grew up in is a private address and is not this pin.

The pin is the gorge the town is built around.

Stand on the viewing platforms above a release and you are in the landscape that produced a contractor, not a financier.

Photo: Tubaist, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons