William Boeing: Founder of Boeing
Business Owner · Aerospace & Defence
William Boeing founded the Pacific Airplane Company in 1916, renamed Boeing in 1917, now among the world's largest aerospace manufacturers and the biggest US exporter by value.
About William Boeing: Founder of Boeing
William Edward Boeing (October 1, 1881 to September 28, 1956) was an American aviation pioneer who founded the Pacific Airplane Company in 1916, renamed Boeing a year later. The company is now the largest exporter in the United States by dollar value and among the largest aerospace manufacturers in the world. His first design, the Boeing Model 1 (or B & W Seaplane), first flew in June 1916, a month before the company was founded. In 1929 he helped create the United Aircraft and Transport Corporation and served as its chairman until its forced breakup in 1934. He received the Daniel Guggenheim Medal in 1934 and was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1966. Boeing was born in Detroit to Marie M. Ortmann, from Vienna, and Wilhelm Boeing, a wealthy mining engineer from Hohenlimburg, Germany, who emigrated to the United States in 1868, initially working as a laborer without financial support from his father, and later made a fortune from North Woods timber lands and iron ore mineral rights on Minnesota's Mesabi Range. In 1890, when William was eight, his father died of influenza and his mother soon moved to Europe. Sources: English Wikipedia (William Boeing, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Founder, Boeing (1881-1956)
Company Details
The Boeing Company
Aerospace Manufacturing