Johnson, Philip G. (Philip Gustav), 1894-1944

Aviation industry pioneer.

Philip Gustav Johnson was a pioneer in the manufacturing of airplanes and in the organization of commercial airlines in the U.S. and Canada. Born in Seattle on 5 Nov. 1894, Johnson was the son of Swedish immigrants Charles S. and Hanna (Gustavson) Johnson. He attended Seattle grade schools and graduated from Broadway High School on Capitol Hill. Johnson was a mechanical engineering student in the University of Washington College of Engineering when the Boeing engineering department recruited him in 1917. He held successive positions in the Engineering Department (1917-1918), the Production Department (1918-1919), as Superintendent (1919-1922), as Vice-president, and as General Manager (1922-1926), becoming president of the company in 1926. He was president of four companies that preceded United Airlines--Boeing Air Transport, Pacific Air Transport, National Air Transport and Varney Air Lines--and in 1933, of United Aircraft and Transport Company, the parent company merging Boeing, Pratt & Whitney, and other companies. In 1934, as a result of the scandal surrounding the assignment of air mail contracts, Johnson resigned his position as president. Among the conditions allowing airlines to bid for new air mail contracts was the requirement that the company not employ any executives present at the 1930 "spoils conference" with Postmaster General Brown, where lucrative air mail contracts had been allotted. Johnson resigned his position with Boeing, leaving for Canada in 1937 to assume the post of Vice-President in charge of operations for Trans-Canada Air Lines. Simultaneously, he was president of Kenworth Motor Truck Company, a position he held until his death in 1944. In 1939, the legislation that had driven Johnson out of Boeing was rescinded. With the company losing money and with an increased demand for aircraft in wartime, Johnson returned to Seattle and resumed the presidency of Boeing, supervising the production of the B-17 Flying Fortress bombers and putting Boeing back on its feet financially. Johnson also served on the Board of Directors for the Pacific National Bank, Puget Sound Power and Light, and Puget Sound Navigation Company; he was also named the "First Citizen" of Seattle in 1943. Phil Johnson died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Wichita, Kan., on 14 Sept. 1944, while on business for Boeing.

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