Donald Bruce Kaufman

Donald Bruce Kaufman (May 7, 1922 – January 4, 1983) was an American home builder and entrepreneur who with Eli Broad co-founded Kaufman & Broad, now known as KB Home (NYSE: KBH), in 1957.

Early life Donald Bruce Kaufman was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1922, the third child of immigrant parents from Russia. His father was a finish carpenter and his mother was ill most of her life with tuberculosis. Donald was moved around to live with different family members most of his young life.

Career At the end of World War II he joined the Air Force and became a cadet. Though he never saw action, he did learn to fly an airplane. After his service, he gathered some of his friends and started a business framing houses in Detroit. He later started a contracting company he called ABCO, named so as it would be the first company listed under contractors in the telephone book. The business received a lot of work after the Korean war, with men returning to the States and needing homes for their growing families. He later renamed the business Cordell Construction Co.

In 1957, Kaufman joined with Eli Broad and co-founded Kaufman & Broad, now known as KB Home (NYSE: KBH). With limited resources, Kaufman handled production, purchasing quality, and material control and Broad did the financial detail and administration work. Kaufman also devised a method to build homes on cement slabs, which enabled the firm to make a heavy impact on the Detroit market at a time of dwindling demand and high competition for home buyers. The company expanded to Arizona in 1962 and into California in 1963 and was the first U.S. homebuilder to expand into France in 1967.

In 1965, the Detroit News noted:

In 1994, Glorya Kaufman, family members, and friends made donations for the construction of the 10,040-square-foot Donald Bruce Kaufman branch of the Los Angeles Public Library in Brentwood, Los Angeles.