George David Auchter was born on January 6, 1889, in Jersey City, New Jersey. The oldest of three children, his father was an engineer. Auchter also trained as an engineer at Rutgers College and was living in Red Bank, New Jersey, when his employer sent him to Florida to work on a bridge project in the early 1920s. At the time, construction in Florida was booming and Auchter saw an opportunity because Jacksonville was “The River City” and Auchter knew bridge construction. He received Florida engineering license #375 in 1922, and initially concentrated on bridges and overpasses, founding the George D. Auchter Company in 1929. George Sr. died in 1974 when George Jr. was running the business.
The Auchter Company did design and engineering work for both on-site construction and pre-construction pieces shipped worldwide. It built office buildings, factories, bridges, warehouses, resorts, churches, museums, residential projects, hospitals, and power generating stations. The company built Jacksonville International Airport, military bases, courthouses, and jails. To support World War II, it built floating repair drydocks for the US Navy. He later sold the company to the Glass family.
Dave Auchter, one of the founder’s grandsons, later became a company executive. For the war effort built pulpwood barges, floating repair drydocks, and concrete ships. After the war, he continued in civil construction and high-rise projects. Wishing to retire, George Auchter Jr. sold the company to an investor group in 1981. He died in 1986. One of the investors was Wilbur H. Glass Jr., whose father Wilbur H Glass Sr had been President of the Auchter Company for 14 years. Glass Jr also had a civil engineering degree, having joined the US Army as a field engineer in 1957. He worked at the Auchter Company, initially as a project manager and became a vice president in 1979. Glass bought out the other investors in 1993, and kept the Auchter Company name.
The company continued its tradition of building Jacksonville’s major works and expanded to other Florida locations. Glass also moved the company into retail service, such as Gate Petroleum convenience stores and three big-box Target stores in the North Florida area. In 1999, the Auchter Company moved its headquarters to a First Coast Technology Park on the University of North Florida’s campus. The new 3.36 acre headquarters helped build the company’s relationship with the university.
Glass’s son, Brad Glass earned a degree in business administration from the University of North Florida and joined The Auchter Company in 1995. Jeff Glass, Wilbur’s other son, started with the company in 1978. In 1993 Wilbur made both of his sons partners in ownership. Jeff retired in 2004 and Brad later went on to become president. In 2000, another of George Auchter’s grandsons, Dave Auchter, became Director of Corporate Development after working as media director for World Golf Village and the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Auchter_Company