William Edward Boeing Jr. (November 22, 1922 – January 8, 2015) was an American real estate developer and philanthropist who was the son of aviation pioneer

William E. Boeing William Edward Boeing (; October 1, 1881 – September 28, 1956) was an American aviation pioneer who founded the Pacific Airplane Company in 1916, which a year later was renamed to The Boeing Company, now the largest exporter in the United S ...

, founder of

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 ...

. In 2010, the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of ...

presented Boeing Jr. with a certificate of achievement for his commitment to education and the preservation of air and space history. Boeing Jr. had fond childhood memories of the Red Barn, the birthplace of the Boeing Company, where he was once given a piece of balsa wood he crafted into a model ship. He did not understand his father's importance until his classmates nicknamed him after one of the Boeing airplanes. In the late 1970s he was instrumental in ensuring that the Red Barn, the oldest airplane manufacturing facility in the U.S., was preserved and integrated into the Seattle Museum of Flight. He died in Seattle on January 8, 2015, aged 92. In 2014, Boeing Jr. was inducted into the

International Air & Space Hall of Fame The International Air & Space Hall of Fame is an honor roll of people, groups, organizations, or things that have contributed significantly to the advancement of aerospace flight and technology, sponsored by the San Diego Air & Space Museum. Si ...

at the

San Diego Air & Space Museum San Diego Air & Space Museum (SDASM, formerly the San Diego Aerospace Museum) is an aviation and space exploration museum in San Diego, California, United States. The museum is located in Balboa Park and is housed in the former Ford Building, ...

.Sprekelmeyer, Linda, editor. ''These We Honor: The International Aerospace Hall of Fame''. Donning Co. Publishers, 2006. .

References

1922 births 2015 deaths American real estate businesspeople American people of German descent {{US-business-bio-1920s-stub 20th-century American businesspeople