Brazilian engineering mogul Norberto Odebrecht, the founder of one of Latin America's largest construction companies, passed away Sunday at the age of 93.

Odebrecht died in the Brazilian state of Bahia because of heart complications. His funeral was held on Monday.

The company, Odebrecht SA, completed some of the continent's largest, most difficult projects, according to Bloomberg.

Odebrecht created the company in 1944 in Bahia and expanded it into other areas of Brazil in the 1960s by building the main office building for Petroleo Brasileiro SA, a state-owned oil company, in Rio de Janeiro.

The company also paved roads across the Andes mountains, through the Amazon jungle and into Peru. The company then expanded into international territory in the 1970s.

The gross revenue of Odebrecht SA grew 16 percent in the last year to 96.9 billion reais ($43.5 billion), which makes it the biggest closely held company in Latin America. The firm has 175,000 employees and more than $30 billion in projects that are currently underway or will be completed in the near future. The company has completed projects in more than 26 countries, including expanding the Miami International Airport and constructing highways in Angola.

Odebrecht built four of the 12 stadiums for the World Cup soccer tournament that took place this summer. The company is also currently constructing the world's biggest dam in the Amazon by drilling a 12-mile tunnel to divert a river from the Amazon basin into a dam on the Pacific side of the Andes mountains.

In addition, the company is building offloading rigs for deep-water oil exploration and floating production storage as well as submarines and missiles for the military.

Odebrecht was born in 1920 into a family of German heritage. He studied engineering and began working for his father, Emilio, who owned a construction business. He was in charge of warehousing and transportation for his father's business.

Odebrecht took over his father's small engineering firm at the age of 21 and eventually turned it into a billion-dollar construction company.

Odebrecht expanded the company in the 1960s and '70s when the military government of Brazil was looking to increase economic growth through investing in big infrastructure projects.

Norberto turned over the company to his son, Emilio, in 1998. Instead, Norberto focused on running the Odebrecht Foundation, an environmental and educational nonprofit.

While Norberto leaves an impressive legacy of infrastructure development and philanthropy, his legacy is not without some controversy.

A number of Brazilian groups angry about the spending for the World Cup staged protests outside Odebrecht's offices in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The company faced harsh criticism for the billionaire contracts it won to build the World Cup stadiums.

The Odebrecht family, which is based in the north-eastern Brazilian city of Salvador, a port city, is of the few privileged families to have political contacts with wealthy figures at both the national and local level.

His grandson, Marcelo, has been chief executive officer of Odebrecht SA after taking over the company in 2008.