Herb Kelleher: Co-founder and CEO of Southwest Airlines
Business Owner · Airlines & Aviation
Herb Kelleher, a Texas lawyer, co-founded Southwest Airlines with Rollin King and fought four years of legal challenges, winning at the US Supreme Court in 1970, to launch low-cost service across the Texas Triangle.
About Herb Kelleher: Co-founder and CEO of Southwest Airlines
Herbert David "Herb" Kelleher (March 12, 1931 to January 3, 2019) was an American billionaire airline businessman and lawyer, the co-founder, later CEO and chairman emeritus of Southwest Airlines until his death in 2019. He was born in Camden, New Jersey, raised in Audubon, and graduated from Haddon Heights High School. He earned a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University, where he was an Olin Scholar majoring in English with a minor in philosophy, and a JD cum laude from New York University School of Law, where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar. After clerking for a New Jersey Supreme Court justice, Kelleher moved to Texas intending to start a law firm or a business, and was a partner in Oppenheimer, Rosenberg, Kelleher & Wheatley from 1969 to 1981. With one of his law clients, the Texas businessman Rollin King, and the banker John Parker, he created the concept that became Southwest Airlines: a simple plan to connect the Texas Triangle with low-cost air service, patterned largely on California's Pacific Southwest Airlines. A much-retold founding myth says the business plan was written on a cocktail napkin in a San Antonio restaurant, though Kelleher and King both said there was no literal napkin. The company was incorporated as "Air Southwest Co." in 1967, and Kelleher and King faced four years of setbacks and legal challenges from competitors, culminating in winning key cases before the Supreme Court of the United States in December 1970 and the Supreme Court of Texas in June 1971. Sources: English Wikipedia (Herb Kelleher, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Co-founder, CEO and Chairman Emeritus, Southwest Airlines (1931-2019)
Company Details
Southwest Airlines
Airlines, Low-Cost Air Travel
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