By Teresa Wippel    ‰    Photography by Zoe Keone
                                   © 2002 by Bridges to Prosperity, Inc.

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.