William Edward Boeing (; October 1, 1881 – September 28, 1956) was an American
aviation
Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...
pioneer who founded the Pacific Airplane Company in 1916, which a year later was renamed to
The Boeing Company
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
, now the largest exporter in the United States by dollar value and among the largest
aerospace manufacturer
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, or spacecraft. Aerospace is a high technology industry.
...
s in the world. William Boeing's first design was the
Boeing Model 1
The Boeing Model 1, also known as the B & W Seaplane, was a United States single-engine biplane seaplane aircraft. It was the first Boeing product and carried the initials of its designers, William Boeing and Lt. Conrad Westervelt USN.
Design
...
(or B & W Seaplane), which first flew in June 1916, a month before the company was founded. He also helped create the
United Aircraft and Transport Corporation
The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was formed in 1929, when William Boeing of Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation teamed up with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney to form a large, vertically-integrated, amalgamated firm, un ...
(known as "
United Airlines
United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois. " today) in 1929 and served as its chairman. He received the
Daniel Guggenheim Medal The Daniel Guggenheim Medal is an American engineering award, established by Daniel and Harry Guggenheim. The medal is considered to be one of the greatest honors that can be presented for a lifetime of work in aeronautics. Recipients have include ...
in 1934 and was posthumously inducted in to the
National Aviation Hall of Fame
The National Aviation Hall of Fame (NAHF) is a museum, annual awards ceremony and learning and research center that was founded in 1962 as an Ohio non-profit corporation in Dayton, Ohio, United States, known as the "Birthplace of Aviation" with it ...
in 1966, ten years after his death.
Early life
![Boeing Hohenlimburg01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Boeing_Hohenlimburg01.jpeg)
William Boeing was born in
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
, to Marie M. Ortmann, from
Vienna, Austria
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, and Wilhelm Böing (1846–1890) from
Hohenlimburg, Germany.
[ Wilhelm Böing emigrated to the ]United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 1868 and initially worked as a laborer. His move to America was disliked by his father and he received no financial support. He later made a fortune from North Woods
The Laurentian Mixed Forest Province, also known as the North Woods, is a forested ecoregion in eastern North America. Among others, this terminology has been adopted by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Similar, though not n ...
timber lands and iron ore mineral rights on the Mesabi Range
The Mesabi Iron Range is a mining district in northeastern Minnesota following an elongate trend containing large deposits of iron ore. It is the largest of four major iron ranges in the region collectively known as the Iron Range of Minnesota. ...
of Minnesota
Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...
, north of Lake Superior
Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...
.
In 1890, when William was eight, his father died of influenza
Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptoms ...
and his mother soon remarried.[ He attended school in ]Vevey
Vevey (; frp, Vevê; german: label=former German, Vivis) is a town in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne. The German name Vivis is no longer commonly used.
It was the seat of the district of ...
, Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
, and returned to the US for a year of prep school in Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
.[ He enrolled at ]Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...
, dropping out in 1903 to go into the lumber business.
Career
Boeing moved to Hoquiam, Washington
Hoquiam ( ) is a city in Grays Harbor County, Washington, United States. It borders the city of Aberdeen at Myrtle Street, with Hoquiam to the west. The two cities share a common economic history in lumbering and exporting, but Hoquiam has mainta ...
, in the Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though ...
. He was successful in the venture, in part by shipping lumber to the East Coast via the then-new Panama Canal
The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...
, generating funds that he would later apply to a very different business.[The Panama Canal's unexpected winners]
BBC Mundo, July 4, 2016
While president of Greenwood Timber Company, Boeing, who had experimented with boat design, traveled to Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
. During the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, he saw a manned flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with aircraft
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines ...
. In 1910, at the Dominguez Flying Meet, Boeing asked every pilot foreign and domestic if he could go for an airplane ride and was repeatedly denied except for French aviator Louis Paulhan
Isidore Auguste Marie Louis Paulhan (; 19 July 1883 – 10 February 1963), was a French aviator. He is known for winning the first ''Daily Mail'' aviation prize for the first flight between London and Manchester in 1910.
Biography
Paulhan was b ...
. Boeing waited and Paulhan finished the meet and left never giving Boeing his ride. Boeing took flying lessons at Glenn L. Martin Flying School in Los Angeles and purchased one of Martin's planes.[Schefke, Brian]
"William Edward Boeing."
In ''Immigrant Entrepreneurship: German-American Business Biographies, 1720 to the Present'', vol. 4, edited by Jeffrey Fear. German Historical Institute. Last modified June 3, 2016. Martin pilot James Floyd Smith
James Floyd Smith (17 October 1884 – 18 April 1956) was an inventor, aviation pioneer, and parachute manufacturer. With borrowed money, he built, then taught himself to fly his own airplane.
He worked as a flight instructor and test pi ...
traveled to Seattle to assemble Boeing's new Martin TA hydroaeroplane and continue to teach its owner to fly. Huge crates arrived by train and Smith assembled the plane in a tent hangar erected on the shore of Lake Union. Boeing's test pilot, Herb Munter, soon damaged the plane. When he was told by Martin that replacement parts would not be available for months, Boeing told his friend, Commander George Conrad Westervelt
George Conrad Westervelt (December 30, 1879 – March 15, 1956) was a United States Navy, U.S. Navy engineer who created the company "Pacific Aero Products Co." together with William Boeing. Westervelt left the company in 1916 and Boeing change ...
of the US Navy, "We could build a better plane ourselves and build it faster." Westervelt agreed. They soon built and flew the B & W Seaplane, an amphibian biplane that had outstanding performance. Boeing decided to go into the aircraft business, using an old boat works on the