 The <unk> Brothers , heads of the Utah Construction Company , were interested in bidding on the project , but lacked the money for the performance bond . They lacked sufficient resources even in combination with their longtime partners , Morrison @-@ <unk> , which employed the nation 's leading dam builder , Frank Crowe . They formed a joint venture to bid for the project with Pacific Bridge Company of Portland , Oregon ; Henry J. Kaiser & W. A. <unk> Company of San Francisco ; MacDonald & Kahn Ltd. of Los Angeles ; and the <unk> Shea Company of Portland , Oregon . The joint venture was called Six Companies , Inc. as <unk> and Kaiser were considered one company for purposes of 6 in the name . The name was descriptive and was an inside joke among the San Franciscans in the bid , where " Six Companies " was also a Chinese benevolent association in the city . There were three valid bids , and Six Companies ' bid of $ 48 @,@ 890 @,@ <unk> was the lowest , within $ 24 @,@ 000 of the <unk> government estimate of what the dam would cost to build , and five million dollars less than the next @-@ lowest bid . 
