Page 24 - Volume 13 Number 1

In 1930 Walter Beech and Olive Ann Mellor married. Two years later the couple risked their financial future to form the Beech Aircraft Company, and one year later they came perilously close to failure. (Mary Lynn Oliver)
returning home but baffled by his plans to re-enter the airframe manufacturing business amid the ravages of the Great Depression.2
The local press swarmed around Mr. and Mrs. Beech when they arrived in Wichita. Walter told reporters that he had returned for the sole purpose of forming the Beech Aircraft Company and to conduct “ambitious experiments” that he predicted would “revolutionize commercial aviation.” By the end of March Ted Wells had arrived and soon after K.K. Shaul, who had served as comptroller for the Travel Air Company, joined the tiny workforce. As originally formed April 19, 1932, officers of the Beech Aircraft Company included:
= Walter H. Beech, president = Ted Wells, vice president of
engineering
= K.K. Shaul, treasurer
= Olive Ann Beech, secretary JANUARY 2019
22 • KING AIR MAGAZINE