William Fenning

William Fenning is an American business man, he ran Cleveland Wrecking Company, the largest and most profitable demolitions firm in the U.S. for more than 50 years. Mr. Fenning was the topic of featured articles in several magazines, including Fortune.

Life & Business

Fenning graduated with a degree in Business from USC before entering the armed services. He initially entered the Army, but was given medical discharge due to "flat feet." After the discharge, Fenning was accepted into an officer training program through the Army Air Corps (now the Air Force), under which he served during World War II as a bombardier on a B-17 aircraft. He won a Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal 6-times.

After the war, Fenning married Dione Rose, a former native of San Francisco and the daughter of Charles Rose (not to be confused with the senator of the same name), who with his four brothers owned a demolition company they had founded in 1910. After their marriage, Fenning took a job at the company, working his way to executive status and slowly over time buying the Rose men (including several cousins who worked with the company) out of their stake, eventually becoming majority stockholder of Cleveland Wrecking. William Fenning's son, Donald Fenning, joined the Cleveland Wrecking Company staff in the mid 1970's, and was later appointed as the company president in the early 1990s.

Over the course of the more than fifty years that Cleveland Wrecking Company was in existence, the company grew to be the largest and most successful demolition contracting firms in the world, with offices all across the U.S. and an average yearly revenues of $50,000,000-60,000,000, USD; with revenues was as high as $72,000,000 during the years of Fenning's tenure. (Bill Fenning did own majority interest in the company, and was he the CEO of Cleveland's corporate entity. Previous company Presidents included Sidney Rose and Stanley Rose).

The company completed jobs all across the U.S. and handled several international projects. The company handled a landmark project in Hong Kong, when they handled the demolition of the notorious Walled City of Kowloon. The company handled countless major projects, including The Anaconda Smelter Complex. the former IBM Building in Manhattan, and numerous major demolition, dismantling and decommissioning projects. The home office of Cleveland was in Los Angeles for the years of Fenning's tenure as President and CEO, and the company handled hundreds of high profile projects in the L.A. area. Among their local work in the Los Angeles region was the demolition by implosion of the Park Plaza Hotel in Inglewood, located on property that at the time was being considered as the site for a new professional football stadium.

Cleveland Wrecking company was acquired by Dames & Moore, a large engineering firm, in 1997. The Dames and Moore Corporation was then acquired by URS Corporation, and Cleveland Wrecking then became a part of the URS Corporation's Contracting Division, who retained Mr. Fenning as an executive advisor and consultant. William Fenning has continued his association with the URS Corporation, working in a consulting and advisory position, since Cleveland's acquisition.

Fenning currently lives in Los Angeles, CA, with his wife of 56 years. He has 4 children and 9 grandchildren.

Interesting facts

Among the executive staff at Cleveland was Mr. Fenning's son-in-law, Lawrence Grauman, the son of stage, film and television director Walter Grauman and a distant blood realitive of Sid Grauman.

Mr. Fenning played on the 1939 National Championship USC Trojan football team.

Brother-in-Law of famed Daily Variety writer Army Archerd

William Fenning's son, Donald Fenning left Cleveland Wrecking Company a couple of years following the acquisition by Dames & Moore and started The Fenning Group LLC, which also operates a hotel service, resale and liquidation division, which operates under the name of Hotel Surplus Outlet.