Brad D. Inman
Go to Oral HistoryReturn to Biographies & Oral Histories Home
Brad Inman followed his father into civil engineering. As his father worked for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Inman lived in numerous places growing up. During his high school years, he lived in Puerto Rico.
Inman matriculated at Stanford University. He wanted to study engineering, but had no compelling interest in a particular subfield. In time, he decided to focus on civil engineering and, in 1962, earned a B.S. degree.
His studies overlapped those of Dean E. Stephan. Both Inman and Stephan eventually became regional managers within Charles Pankow, Inc.
Both men also worked together at Guy F. Atkinson, a contractor based in South San Francisco. Inman took a job with the company directly out of university; Stephan entered the U.S. Navy, and then joined Atkinson after he completed his tour of duty. Charlie Pankow attempted to recruit both Inman and Stephan while they built the 29-story Dobie Center on the University of Texas’s flagship campus in Austin as superintendent and project engineer, respectively. At the time, both Inman and Stephan demurred, but approached the Pankow company some two years later, after Atkinson had shuttered its building division and both men had returned to California.
In December 1972, Inman joined Charles Pankow, Inc., in its San Francisco office. In the spring of 1973, he was sent to Lexington, Kentucky, to manage the completion of the 15-story First Security National Bank & Trust Building. Upon its completion, he stayed in town to construct the parking structure associated with the project.
In October 1974, Inman returned to San Francisco as vice president in charge of the regional office. He served in this capacity until mid-1988, when Charlie Pankow replaced him with Richard M. Kunnath, who later became CEO of Charles Pankow Builders, Ltd. (CPBL).
Inman was transferred to Hawaii as vice president of construction operations. The move was a short-lived one, however, as George Hutton, who had headed Pankow in Hawaii since 1965, asked Inman to resign in December 1990.
Inman stayed in Hawaii, taking a position with Taisei Corporation, a Japanese civil engineering and real estate development firm that had been founded in 1873. Taisei had been a joint venture partner with CPBL on Shoreline Square, a 1.2-million-square-foot office and hotel complex located in Long Beach, California, completed in 1988. Inman stayed with Taisei until 1996, when he and his wife returned to California to be closer to their family.
In 2006 Thomas D. Verti, president of Pankow Operating, Inc., the general partner of CPBL, asked Inman to assist the company in completing four major projects in Hawaii. Inman accepted the invitation and spent six months in this consulting role.
