Preston Haskell

Preston Hampton Haskell, III is founder and former chairman of The Haskell Company, the largest privately held construction company in Florida and a top design/build firm in the United States. He was also a minority owner of the National Football League Jacksonville Jaguars. In 2011, he was named a "Florida Icon" by Florida Trend magazine. He graduated with the second graduating class in 1956 from Indian Springs School in Shelby County, Alabama;

Career When Haskell left MIT, he settled in Jacksonville, Florida and was employed by the S. S. Jacobs Company. Developer James Winston encouraged Haskell to break out on his own and gave the Preston H. Haskell Company their first project in 1965. The company successfully designed and built a $1 million apartment complex at Atlantic Beach. It began to develop a reputation for quality work on time and within budget.

Throughout his career, Haskell used and promoted the integrated Design–build method of construction as opposed to the traditional Design–bid–build. For years he faced widespread opposition to what was classified as a non-traditional method. He took an active leadership role in the construction industry as the founding chairman of the Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA). He also served as a director of the Civil Engineering Forum for Innovation (now a subgroup of the American Society of Civil Engineers). The company has expanded their scope to include all of the Western Hemisphere.

Preston Haskell was honored with the Brunelleschi Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 from the DBIA.

He also received the 2021 Legacy Award from Engineering News-Record (ENR).

Service to the community Haskell has served as chairman of the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art and former chairman of the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville. He frequently loans items from his personal collection to institutions for display.

Personal While in school, Haskell met Joan Elizabeth Smith, whom he later married and with whom he shares three children: Preston IV, Sally and Rushton.

Haskell is an avid art collector; his primary interest is 1940-50s Abstract expressionism and some Minimalism. He owns originals by Hoffman, Kline, Motherwell and Rothko. He founded Haskell Vineyards in 2002 in South Africa after purchasing the 23-hectare (56.8 acre) Dombeya wine farm in Stellenbosch.

Haskell also owns Auriant Mining, a Swedish company that owns a gold mining enterprise in the Republic of Tyva.

While living in Moscow, the son met Belarus-born Alesia Vladimirovna in 2003, co-habitated in 2005, got engaged in 2007 and married in 2008. The union bore three children. The wife petitioned for divorce in 2016 due to infidelity and substance abuse. During divorce proceedings, Haskell claimed he was £50 million in debt and his current liquidity and cash flow problems that require two to three years to resolve. The court issued an order for interim support payments. Haskell supported his children and spouse in 2017 & 2018 and a financial settlement was postponed over a possible reconciliation. However, in January 2019 it was announced that there would be no reconciliation and his financial support ended. Court documents describe his attitude as "unremittingly punitive". At a hearing, he was ordered to pay £45,700 per month. Haskell paid just over half the amount ordered, and by August he was £310,000 in arrears. A six-day hearing occurred in August 2020 during which Haskell admitted to "mean and spiteful" behavior and that he had not disposed of any assets during his period of 'liquidity and cash flow problems'. Neither had he dismissed any members of his staff nor curtailed his vacation travels to numerous foreign destinations. A judge ordered Haskell to pay £647,000 within three weeks and a clean break settlement of £5.18 million within two years. In July 2021 he lost an appeal of the original court order and was given a six-week jail sentence if he returns to England.