Jack Kenneth Lemley CBE (January 2, 1935 – November 29, 2021) was an American architect and engineering manager who led delivery of large infrastructure projects across the globe. His projects included the Channel Tunnel between England and France, the King Khalid Military City in Saudi Arabia, and a water tunnel in New York. He was also leading the delivery of the infrastructure facilities for 2012 London Olympics before he resigned citing interference in 2006.
Lemley was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his work on the Channel Tunnel by in 1996.
Lemley was born in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on January 2, 1935. His mother was a homemaker while his father was employed with a power company. He graduated from the University of Idaho, in 1960 with an architecture degree.[1][2]
Lemley started his career with construction firm Guy F. Atkinson Construction as an engineer. He later went on to work with American engineering company Morrison-Knudsen and later with American equipment manufacturer Blount[1] His early projects included the Interstate 5 project in Seattle, and other projects in New York.[2] One of his first major projects was construction of the King Khalid Military City in Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[1]
In 1989, Lemley joined the TransManche Link, a consortium of British and French construction companies that was tasked with building the 31-mile Channel Tunnel, an undersea tunnel linking France and Britain. At the time that he had joined the project, the project was facing significant time delays and cost overruns. The task itself of connecting the two countries under the English Channel was a complex one. Leading the project, he focused on reducing the time delays and had to negotiate with Eurotunnel to agree on who would bear the additional costs. The construction of the tunnel was completed in 1994.[1] He was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his work on the Channel Tunnel by Queen Elizabeth II in 1996.[3] At the time that he took over the project, he noted that while the French side of the project was well-managed, the British side did not have common management systems and had a poor understanding of the tunneling methodologies. To solve the financial challenges, he had reached out to Margaret Thatcher's government to make a call to her Japanese counterpart to request the Japanese banks (who held more than 30% of the project financing debt) to renegotiate the terms of lending.[3] Reflecting on his time on the project, he would later say, "I was really a king in charge of that whole project."[4] He was later credited by journalists such as John Sowell and Sven Berg of the Idaho Statesman as having rescued the Channel Tunnel project.[3]
Lemley was hired in 2005 to lead the development of facilities for the 2012 London Olympics and was made the chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority. However, he resigned in 2006 citing political interference and other administrative actions that would not allow him to deliver within costs and on time.[5][3] Talking about his resignation he would go on to say, "I went there to build things, not to sit and talk about it. So I felt it best to leave the post and come home."[6]