RIVERSIDE – (INT) – Inland Empire freeway builder and business leader Jacques S. “Jack” Yeager Sr. died Wednesday at the age of 94.

Jacques and his two younger brothers, Richard and Ernest Eugene “Gene” Yeager, took over the family business in 1952 and built it into one of the largest public works and private construction companies in the country.

Among many projects, the company pushed Interstate 10 east of Palm Springs and turned the old Highway 91 into a major freeway, opening up a route to Corona and Orange County.

Jacques support for UC Riverside started in 1953, when his family-owned company, the E.L. Yeager Construction Co., did the initial grading for the campus and poured the “C” on the side of Box Springs Mountain. Yeager’s gifts to UCR significantly strengthened its engineering programs,

Yeager and his surviving brother, Gene, sold the business to its management group in 1995, which was later purchased by the Swedish construction company Skanska in 2002.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial donations to The Jacques S. Yeager, Sr. Endowed Chair in Bioengineering at UC Riverside.

Story Date: April 30, 2016