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by Teresa Wippel
photography by Zoe Keone
Ken Frantz enthusiastically recalls the day in March 2001 that
transformed his life forever. Waiting for an oil change at a car
dealership in Virginia, he picked up a National Geographic
magazine, which fell open to a dramatic photograph: a man dangling
from a rope strung between two arches of a broken stone bridge
spanning the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia.
Built 360 years ago, the Second Portuguese Bridge had been
partially destroyed during World War II by Ethiopian patriots
desperate to keep Italian dictator Mussolini's troops from entering
their territory. But Ethiopia, one of the world's poorest
countries, had not been able to repair the bridge, a lifeline for
moving everything from grain to live animals from one side to the
other. For 65 years, crossing the river over the broken span
required a group of men standing on either side with a rope,
pulling the person across inch by inch.
When Frantz saw the photo, the semi-retired construction
executive had an immediate thought: "Here's something that I can
do. There's a tremendous need, and it wouldn't be that hard."
Thinking about the photograph as he drove home from the car
dealership, Frantz had another idea: "Not only could I fix this
bridge, I could see if there are opportunities to fix other
bridges." After talking with his wife, Cheri, and his two pre-teen
sons, and after establishing a non-profit organization, Bridges to
Prosperity, Frantz began writing letters and making phone calls to
family members and friends, requesting their support.
That the magazine had fallen open to that page "was quite
strange," said the 1971 political science graduate of Washington
State University. "I had been thinking about what is going to be my
legacy, beyond family and beyond succeeding in business.
Personally, for me it was a calling."
Another twist of fate was the fact that his brother, Forrest
Frantz ('74 General Studies, '78 M.B.A.), had seen the same
photograph and had the identical thought of rebuilding the bridge-a
coincidence the pair discovered when they talked a couple of weeks
later. Forrest, who lives in Snoqualmie Pass with his wife, Pat
King Frantz ('77 Office Administration), and their two daughters,
became a founding director of Bridges to Prosperity and played a
key role in overseeing the design and engineering of Second
Portuguese Bridge.
Ken Frantz is no stranger to construction projects and bridges,
or to completing them quickly. Growing up in Burien, he, Forrest,
and their three brothers-Jim ('70 Electrical Engineering), Lawrence
('72 Chemical Engineering), and Marty (x'73 Business
Administration)-helped their father, a Boeing engineer, build
summer vacation homes. Then the homes were sold to fund the boys'
tuition at WSU.
Frantz recalls building a 120-unit apartment complex with Marty
in 56 days, setting a national record. And when Frantz relocated
his family from California's Silicon Valley to Gloucester County,
Virginia, in 1992, he fulfilled a longtime dream of buying an
island-Cuba Island on the York River. Of course, while building a
home on the 17-acre island, he needed to get to the mainland, which
required construction of a bridge.
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