Lawrence York Spear (23 October 1870 – 9 September 1950) was an American naval officer and businessman who spent the majority of his career working for the

Electric Boat Company Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

Biography

Born in

Warren, Ohio Warren is a city in and the county seat of Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Located in northeastern Ohio, Warren lies approximately northwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 39,201 at the 2020 census. The his ...

, Spear graduated from the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

in 1890. Lieutenant Spear went to Scotland to attend the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. After returning, he was asked to inspect and oversee the projects that were taking place at several shipyards across America. One of those shipyards was the

Crescent Shipyard Crescent Shipyard, located on Newark Bay in Elizabeth, New Jersey, built a number of ships for the United States Navy and allied nations as well during their production run, which lasted about ten years while under the Crescent name and banner ...

of Elizabeth, New Jersey, where the United States Navy's first submarines were built by John P. Holland's

Holland Torpedo Boat Company General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) is a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation. It has been the primary builder of submarines for the United States Navy for more than 100 years. The company's main facilities are a shipyard in Groton, C ...

. Later on, this company changed its name when

Isaac Rice Isaac Leopold Rice (February 22, 1850 – November 2, 1915) was a German-born Jewish American businessman, investor, musicologist, author, and chess patron.

merged his other holdings ( Electric Storage and

Electro-Dynamic The Electro-Dynamic Company manufactured electric motors and generators 1880–2000, principally as a subsidiary of the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics and its predecessors. History The company was founded by electrical inventor Wi ...

) with Holland's to create the

. In 1902 Spear resigned his Navy commission and joined Electric Boat as a naval constructor He was appointed vice-president when Holland resigned in April 1904. Spear served as president from 1942 to 1947, running the company during World War II, when it was a leading producer of submarines. He served as chairman of the board from 1947 until his death on 9 September 1950. Electric Boat changed its name to General Dynamics in 1952 under the company's new chairman and CEO,

John Jay Hopkins John Jay Hopkins (October 15, 1893 – May 3, 1957) was founder and president of General Dynamics from 1952 to 1957. Hopkins was born in Santa Ana, California. He was assistant to the Treasury Secretary. In 1937, he joined Electric Boat as a law ...

Honors

The

submarine tender A submarine tender is a type of depot ship that supplies and supports submarines. Development Submarines are small compared to most oceangoing vessels, and generally do not have the ability to carry large amounts of food, fuel, torpedoes, and ...

, built by the General Dynamics Shipbuilding Division in Quincy, Massachusetts, was named after him.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography
Chief of Naval Operations Submarine Warfare Division: Submarine Pioneers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spear, Lawrence York 1870 births 1950 deaths People from Warren, Ohio United States Navy officers United States Naval Academy alumni