#85 Walter and Olive Ann Beech (Aviation Legends)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories, and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer. But if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets. They're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high. So I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today. And I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th.
It's the roar, that throaty growl, a sound so distinct and intriguing that it causes your eye and your ear to search the sky for its source.
A tiny speck on the horizon draws nearer, and soon a dramatically different looking airplane comes into view. It looks mighty and powerful, but at the same time sleek and elegant.
One wonders, who was venturesome and inventive enough to build and design this beautiful maverick?
This book is a story of how that unique airplane and many others came to be, and the two people responsible for their creation.
They were Walter and Olive Ann Beech, co-founders of Beech Aircraft, and I am proud to say they were my parents.
These two, both forceful and determined, even if rather eccentric personalities, combine their individual strengths and talents with uncanny ease and rapport to create an extremely successful company with an undisputed reputation of excellence in quality and service.
What were their experiences that launched them on the path that eventually led them together? How did two individuals with rather humble beginnings reach such great heights and accomplish so much at a time when aviation was young and America was struggling through the Great Depression and women executives were rare or non-existent? My mother was a reserved and elegant lady. She carried herself with dignity. She was extremely insightful and loyal. She also could be rather imperious and her very demeanor commanded respect. This quality served her well when she took over beach aircraft after my father's sudden death. She was then a woman in a man's world. The idea of a woman CEO, let alone the CEO of a Fortune 500 size aircraft company, was almost unheard of in those days. But she did more than survive. She took the company to new heights and became fondly known as the First Lady of Aviation.
It has long been in my mind and heart to have a biography written about these two remarkable people.
Much has been written about the airplanes Beech aircraft made, but little has been written about the man and the woman behind those airplanes.
Very little is known about the warmth of their personalities and the strength of their characters. How did they meet adversity? How did the two of them, each so strong and so stubborn, manage to work together?
He called her Annie and she called him Popper. Together they built a company whose name became a byword for excellence.
This is their story, a very human story, and one that I wanted to tell. So that is actually Walter and Olive's daughter, Mary Lynn Oliver, writing in the forward for the book that I read this week and the one that I'm going to talk to you about today, which is The Barnstormer and The Lady, Aviation Legends Walter and Olive Ann Beech by Dennis Farney. And I just thought of something while I was reading that I'm going to go back to the first page real quick before we jump into the rest of the book. And where is the sentence that I'm looking for?
Okay, so it talks about that they were both forceful and determined, they were rather eccentric, and it says what led them to create an extreme, this sentence, an extremely successful company with an undisputed reputation of excellence in quality and service. And the thought just randomly popped in my mind, like I think that's a good goal for everybody that wants to start a company or any kind of work that you want to do is that your children can look back. Her, in this case, the daughter, Mary Lynn, is writing those words about 60 years after her death. Her father died in about 15 years or 20 years after her mother died. I don't know why I thought about that just now, but I think that's a really good goal, to have your children look back at what you were doing and the kind of person you were, and be very proud of you.