Ed Wells redirects here. For the baseball player, see Ed Wells (baseball)

Ed Wells (baseball)

Edwin Lee Wells , nicknamed "Satchelfoot" , was a Major League Baseball pitcher who played 11 seasons in the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers , New York Yankees , and St. Louis Browns . Wells was a left-handed pitcher, with a hard fastball and a slow curve...

Edward Curtis Wells (August 26, 1910 – July 1, 1986) was senior vice president and served on the board of directors

Board of directors

A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...

 of Boeing Company. He designed the Boeing 747

Boeing 747

The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced...

. He was known as the "Elder Statesman of Aviation".

Biography

He was born in Boise, Idaho

Boise, Idaho

Boise is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho, as well as the county seat of Ada County. Located on the Boise River, it anchors the Boise City-Nampa metropolitan area and is the largest city between Salt Lake City, Utah and Portland, Oregon.As of the 2010 Census Bureau,...

 on August 26, 1910. He graduated from Grant High School

Grant High School (Oregon)

Ulysses S. Grant High School is a public high school in the Grant Park neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is the largest high school in the Portland Public Schools district. Three movies have been filmed at the school—Mr. Holland's Opus and Nearing Grace , and the made for T.V...

 in Portland, Oregon

Portland, Oregon

Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

. He attended Willamette University

Willamette University

Willamette University is an American private institution of higher learning located in Salem, Oregon. Founded in 1842, it is the oldest university in the Western United States. Willamette is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges, and is made up of an undergraduate College of Liberal Arts and...

 for two years then attended Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford in 1931 with a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree in engineering.

Wells joined Boeing Company's engineering staff in 1931 and was named Boeing's chief engineer

Chief Engineer

In marine transportation, the chief engineer is a licensed mariner in charge of the engineering department on a merchant vessel. "Chief engineer" is the official title of someone qualified to oversee the entire engine department; the qualification is colloquially called a "chief's...

 in 1943.

He died on July 1, 1986 in Bellevue, Washington

Bellevue, Washington

Bellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 122,363 at the 2010 census.Downtown Bellevue is...

.

Honors

• Daniel Guggenheim Medal
  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...
  
   (1980).
• Fawcett Aviation Award (1944).
• Lawrence Sperry Award from the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences (1942).

Further reading

• Geer, Mary Wells. Boeing's Ed Wells. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992. ISBN 0-295-97204-1.
• Serling, Robert J. Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and its People. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992. ISBN 0-312-05890-X.