Collett Everman Woolman

Background

Woolman, Collett Everman, , Indiana 1889 1966 Male Aviation Executive airline executive, was born in Bloomington, Ind. , the son of Albert Jefferson Woolman, a professor of physics, and Daura Campbell.

Education

He was reared principally in Champaign-Urbana, Ill. , graduating from high school there in 1908.

Commonly known as C. E. , he enrolled at the University of Illinois the same year.

Career

Coad's work, utilizing army planes and personnel, came to the attention of the Huff Daland aircraft manufacturing company of New York, which introduced the first commercial crop-dusting planes and, in 1924, formed a dusting division.

The following year it hired Woolman to sell its services to planters in the Delta.

From the division's Monroe base, the company conducted dusting not only in the Delta but as far away as California and Peru.

By 1930, with additional aircraft, service was expanded to Atlanta, Ga.

When Postmaster General Walter F. Brown realigned airmail service in 1930, Delta failed to win an airmail contract, then indispensable for successful airline operations.

World War II impeded Delta's growth in civilian operations, but the company revived with the return of peace.

Aided by the firm's southern location and heritage, he kept Delta essentially nonunionized, except for its pilots, thus sparing the company from the rash of postwar strikes.

When the jet age arrived in the 1950's, Woolman and Delta were ready; the company pioneered the operation of such aircraft as the DC-8, in 1959, and the DC-9, in 1964.

Woolman's salary, like that of other Delta executives, was low in comparison to the sums paid to airline executives elsewhere, but Woolman became wealthy through the acquisition of company stock.

The years 1935-1941 are covered in the papers of Laigh Parker at Delta headquarters.

See also articles in Delta's in-house publication, Delta Digest; and W. David Lewis and Wesley Phillips Newton, Delta (1979). ]

Religion

When its owners sold the dusting division's assets in 1928, Woolman won financial backing from Monroe-area businessmen to purchase control, and he founded an independent dusting company, Delta Air Service.

Connections

The parent company of Delta Air Lines, this firm added passenger service in 1929 when Woolman secured a secondhand six-passenger Travel Air biplane to operate between Monroe and Dallas, Tex.

Despite failing health, he remained a key figure in the airline industry, which became almost the sole focus of his life after the death of his wife in 1962; during his last few years he relied upon Delta for emotional support just as the company had always relied upon him for leadership.

Father:

Helen

On Aug. 8, 1916, he married Helen Fairfield, a home-economics teacher; they had two children, whom their workaholic father tended to neglect.

married:

Helen

On Aug. 8, 1916, he married Helen Fairfield, a home-economics teacher; they had two children, whom their workaholic father tended to neglect.

children:

Helen

On Aug. 8, 1916, he married Helen Fairfield, a home-economics teacher; they had two children, whom their workaholic father tended to neglect.