Robert LeTourneau was so full of energy in 1902, at the age of fourteen, he left school, with the blessing, but concern, of his Christian parents.
LeTourneau refused military service because of permanent neck injuries sustained in a car-racing accident, he worked during World War I as a maintenance assistant at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in Vallejo, California, where he was trained as an electrical machinist and improved his welding skills.