William Boeing
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| William E. Boeing | |
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 Boeing in 1929 |
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| Born | October 1, 1881 Detroit, Michigan |
| Died | September 28, 1956 (aged 74) Seattle, Washington |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | American |
| Alma mater | Yale University |
| Occupation | Industrialist |
| Known for | Aircraft industry |
| Title | Founder of Boeing Company |
William Edward Boeing (October 1, 1881 – September 28, 1956) was an American aviation pioneer who founded The Boeing Company.
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[edit] Biography
Boeing was born in Detroit, Michigan to a wealthy German mining engineer named Wilhelm Böing who had made a fortune and who had a sideline as a timber merchant.[1] Anglicizing his name to "William Boeing" after returning from being educated in Switzerland in 1900 to attend Yale University,[2] William Boeing left Yale in 1903 to go into the lumber side of the business. He bought extensive timberlands around Grays Harbor on the Pacific side of the Olympic Peninsula. He also bought into lumber operations. He also owned a race track for horses. While president of Greenwood Timber Company, Boeing, who had experimented with boat design, traveled to Seattle, where, during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, he saw a manned flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with aircraft. He soon purchased an airplane from the Glenn L. Martin Company, and received flying lessons from Martin himself. Boeing soon cracked up the plane. When he was told by Martin that replacement parts would not become available for months, Boeing blew up. He angrily told his friend Cdr. G.C. Westervelt USN that "We could build a better plane ourselves and build it faster". Westervelt agreed. They soon built and flew the B&W Flying Boat, an amphibian biplane that had outstanding performance. Boeing decided to go into the aircraft business and bought an old boat works on the Duwamish River near Seattle for his factory.
In 1916, Boeing went into business with George Conrad Westervelt as B & W and founded the Pacific Aero Products Co. The company's first plane was the Boeing Model 1. When America entered the First World War in April 1917, Boeing changed the name of Pacific Aero Products Co. to Boeing Airplane Company and obtained orders from the United States Navy for 50 planes. At the end of the war, Boeing began to concentrate on commercial aircraft, secured contracts to supply airmail service and built a successful airmail operation and later passenger service that evolved into United Airlines.
In 1921 William Boeing married Bertha Marie Paschall. She had previously been married to Nathaniel Paschall, a real estate broker with whom she bore two sons, Nathaniel "Nat" Paschall Jr. and Cranston Paschall. These two sons became Boeing's stepsons. The couple had a son of their own, William E. Boeing Jr. The stepsons went into aviation manufacturing as a career. Nat Paschall was a sales manager for Douglas Aircraft and then McDonnell Douglas. William E. Boeing Jr. became a noted private pilot and industrial real estate developer. Bertha was the daughter of Howard Cranston Potter and Alice Kershaw Potter. Through her father, Bertha was a descendant of merchant bankers Alexander Brown of Baltimore, James Brown and Brown's son-in-law and partner Howard Potter of New York; and through her mother, the granddaughter of Charles James Kershaw and Mary Leavenworth Kershaw (a descendant of Henry Leavenworth).
In 1934, the United States government accused William Boeing of monopolistic practices. The same year, the Air Mail Act forced airplane companies to separate flight operations from development and manufacturing. William Boeing divested himself of ownership as his holding company, United Aircraft and Transport Corporation, broke into three separate entities:
- United Aircraft Corporation, holding the former eastern US manufacturing (now United Technologies Corporation)
- Boeing Airplane Company, with western US manufacturing, which later became The Boeing Company
- United Air Lines for flight operations
He began investing most of his time into his horses in 1937. Boeing Airplane Company, though a major manufacturer in a fragmented industry, did not really take off until the beginning of World War II.
The year of the divestiture, Boeing retired from the aircraft industry. He then spent the remainder of his years in property development and thoroughbred horse breeding. His thoroughbred farm northeast of Seattle was called Aldarra. Aldarra was later developed by William E. Boeing Jr. as a luxury residential development in 2000.
William Boeing died on September 28, 1956, at the age of 74, just three days before his 75th birthday. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Seattle Yacht Club, having had a heart attack aboard his yacht.[3] His ashes were scattered off the coast of British Columbia, where he spent much of his time sailing.[4]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Boeing. "William E. Boeing 1881-1956". Boeing. http://www.boeing.com/commercial/boeing_bio/index.html.
- ^ From the PBS documentary "Pioneers in Aviation: The Race for the Moon Episode I; The Early Years"
- ^ "William Boeing, Plane Pioneer, 74. Founder of Coast Concern Dies at 74. Guggenheim Award Winner in '34.". Associated Press in the New York Times. September 29, 1956. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10D13FF3E5416738FDDA00A94D1405B8689F1D3. Retrieved 2009-06-30. "William E. Boeing, founder of the company that now makes this country's biggest jet bombers, died unexpectedly today aboard his yacht. He was 74 years old."
- ^ http://www.boeing.com/commercial/boeing_bio/chapter6.html
[edit] Further reading
- Carl Cleveland, Boeing Trivia, (Seattle: CMC Books, 1989)
- Harold Mansfield, Vision: A Saga of the Sky (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1956)
- Robert Serling, Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992)
