It was one of those quintessential spring days in Phoenix, Arizona—early March 1948. The sun gleamed in a vibrant blue sky, and the air carried the sweet scent of orange blossoms. To Sam and Betty Kitchell, a young couple driving west in search of opportunity, Phoenix looked far more inviting than the snowdrifts they’d left behind in Newbury, Massachusetts.
For Sam, the move westward was a defining moment, but it was Betty who planted the seed. “Our third child, Jon, had just been born, and the oldest wasn’t even three yet,” Sam recalled years later. “Betty looked up from her hospital bed and said, ‘Since I’m going to be raising a family and you want to be in construction, let’s get out of New England!’”
Sam, a World War II Navy veteran and Amherst College graduate, was ready for a fresh start. After serving as the skipper of a sub-chaser, he worked at a prefab housing company that went bankrupt. At 27, he was eager to move forward—and westward.
Initially, Phoenix was just a stopover on their way to California, but the city’s economy and sunshine proved irresistible. Locals welcomed the Kitchells with open arms, even if some quipped, “Too bad you didn’t come right after the war when things were really booming!” Despite that sentiment, the Valley of the Sun was still growing. Between 1940 and 1950, the population had surged by 75 percent, and the 1950s were set to double that growth.
Sam landed a job writing specifications and supervising construction projects for architect Ed Varney. Within a year, he was back in his preferred field as an estimator for J.R. Porter, a local building contractor.
But Sam’s entrepreneurial spirit truly took flight in late 1949, when Navy veteran and Harvard Business School graduate James B. Phillips offered to loan him $10,000 to start a construction company. On January 18, 1950, Kitchell-Phillips Contractors, Inc. was born in a modest two-room office above a steel fabricator south of downtown Phoenix.
Sam ran operations and estimating, Jim handled finances, and Betty took on the role of unpaid secretary. For three months, the fledgling company had no income—until they secured their first competitive bid: a Safeway supermarket.
That first year, the company built its foundation on relationships, securing school projects in Pinal County and additional Safeway stores. The focus on client relationships became a cornerstone of Kitchell’s long-term success. By year’s end, Kitchell-Phillips had posted $800,000 in sales and a $12,000 profit—a modest return, but an impressive 60-percent return on investment.
Challenges came quickly. Six months after founding the company, the Korean War halted civilian construction. Pivoting to military projects, Kitchell-Phillips won a $900,000 contract to rehabilitate the Tank Training Command at Camp Irwin in California. “The bid had 365 unit prices,” Sam recalled. “I handed it in, caught my breath, and heard someone say, ‘The lucky guy getting this job doesn’t know it’s just the tip of the iceberg.’”
The Camp Irwin project doubled in size during construction, reaching nearly $2 million. It kept Kitchell-Phillips busy into 1952 and solidified the company’s resilience and resourcefulness.
What began with a leap of faith, a borrowed $10,000, and a shared vision between Sam, Betty, and Jim grew into a legacy of innovation, collaboration, and success. Today, Kitchell stands as a testament to their determination and the spirit of opportunity that brought them west all those years ago.