Howard Putnam
was raised on an Iowa farm and learned to fly out of a pasture in his
Father's J-3 Piper Cub. He entered the airline business as a baggage
handler at Midway Airport in Chicago for Capital Airlines at age 17.
Capital was soon merged into United and Howard held thirteen different
positions in sales, services and staff assignments in several cities,
before being named Group Vice President of Marketing for United
Airlines, the world's largest airline, in 1976.
In
1978 he was recruited to become President and CEO of fledgling
Southwest Airlines in Dallas, TX. While at Southwest Howard and his
team tripled the revenues and tripled profitability in three years.
They also successfully guided Southwest through airline deregulation
and Southwest was the first air carrier to order the Boeing 737-300,
which later became the largest selling aircraft ever for Boeing.
Howard led the visioning process at Southwest as well as further
developing the "fun" culture and excellent customer service that South
is still known for today. Southwest has been profitable in every
quarter for over twenty-five years, a record unsurpassed by any
airline.
In
1981, Howard was recruited by the board of directors of Braniff
International to come aboard as CEO and save and/or restructure the
financially failing airline. He was the first airline CEO to
successfully take a major carrier into, through and out of chapter 11.
Braniff flew again in 1984.
He
is the author of "The Winds of Turbulence" on leadership and ethics.
Harvard University wrote a case study on his experiences at Braniff,
"The Ethics of Bankruptcy" as a model as to how to handle stakeholders
in crisis.
