Stanley Hiller Jr. (November 15, 1924 – April 20, 2006), was an American pioneering developer of the

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

Biography

Stanley Hiller was born November 15, 1924, in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, to Stanley Hiller, Sr. and Opal Perkins. The family moved to

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

, in the 1930s. At the age of 15, he designed the world's first successful coaxial helicopter, and produced a working model. At 17, he presented his design for the XH-44 "Hiller-Copter" to the U.S. Army in Washington D.C., winning not only their approval, but also a draft deferment during World War II. Immediately thereafter, he established the first helicopter factory on the West Coast at 1930-50 Addison Street in

. On July 4, 1944, he tested the XH-44 at the Memorial Stadium at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

in Berkeley where he had been admitted as student at age 15. This initial test was followed by a successful public demonstration on the Marina Green in San Francisco adjacent to the U.S. Army's

Crissy Field Crissy Field is a public recreation area on the northern shore of the San Francisco Peninsula in California, United States, located just east of the Golden Gate Bridge. It includes restored tidal marsh and beaches. Crissy Field is a former Un ...

a few months later. Hiller was the founder of Hiller Industries which, in collaboration with

Henry J. Kaiser Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...

, became United Helicopters in 1945. In 1948 the company became

Hiller Helicopters Hiller Aircraft Company was founded in 1942 as Hiller Industries by Stanley Hiller to develop helicopters. History Stanley Hiller, then seventeen, established the first helicopter factory on the West Coast of the United States, located in Berkele ...

. After Hiller merged with

Fairchild Industries Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas. History Early aircraft The company was founded by Sherman Fairchild in 19 ...

in 1966, Hiller left to pursue a second career as a company turnaround specialist. Hiller created the Hiller Investment Company to realize the opportunities in bringing together strong management groups and effective boards of directors to revitalize companies with large asset bases not being employed as effectively as possible. His strategy was to become chairman or chief executive officer, and not take any compensation until the employees had a turnaround, and the company's shareholders realized their promised returns. He had a 20-year progression of corporate turnarounds, starting by "cleaning up" mini-conglomerate G.W. Murphy Industries, which the group changed into Reed Tool Co. and in 1979 he sold it to energy giant Baker International. Soon after that success, the Hiller group took control of the nation's largest moving and storage company, Bekins Co., reversing 20 years of declining earnings as a percent of sales. He took leadership roles in of all of the turnarounds, including Baker International, for which he fashioned a merger with Hughes Tool Company to become today's Baker Hughes Corporation. One of Mr. Hiller's most successful turnarounds came close to the end of his career. At an age when most men contemplate retirement, he persuaded Borg-Warner to spin off to shareholders its failing York International, one of the world's largest air conditioning firms, and put him in charge as CEO. A year after Mr. Hiller took the helm of the once floundering company the company posted a five-fold increase in profits, a 130% rise in stock price, and a stable employment. Maybe his last turnaround was of the Key Tronic Corporation. In March 1992 he was chosen to lead the company away from the brink of failure. Thanks to Hiller's cost-cutting and labor-saving steps, Key Tronic began to demonstrate signs of a recovery by 1993. Profitability returned to the long-time leader in the keyboard industry after years of torpid financial performance. Hiller's short reign came to end in 1995, his temporary, stopgap work completed. Stanley Hiller also served on Boeing's board of directors from 1976 to 1998. On May 25, 1946 he married Carolyn Balsdon who he had met as a student at UC Berkeley. Together, they had two sons, Jeffrey and Stephen. In later years, the couple lived in Atherton, California. Hiller died on April 20, 2006, at age 81 of complications associated with Alzheimer's disease. In 2004, Hiller 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

External links

Hiller Aviation Museum

Stanley Hiller, Sr. Collection, 1922-1962
California State Library, California History Room. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hiller, Stanley Helicopters Aircraft designers Businesspeople in aviation 1924 births 2006 deaths People from Atherton, California