Schwendler, William (Bill)

(April 1904-January 1978)

Mr. Schwendler was one of the founders of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and has been active in its affairs since the company first opened its doors for business in January 1930, in a small rented garage in Baldwin, Long Island.

From his graduation from NYU in 1924 until his death he devoted his energies to the profession he knew and liked and did best, aircraft design. From 1930 to 1950 his emergence as the chief designer of an engineering and manufacturing team that produced the F4F Wildcat, F6F Hellcat, TBF Avenger, and F9F Panther. He designed the first practical retractable landing gear for an amphibious float, and followed that up by designing the first retractable gear for a fighter - the Grumman FF-1.

In the beginning of World War II Mr. Schwendler stated, "We were going to build an airplane that nobody could shoot down. That was our philosophy. Some of them did break up, of course, but I think we had the reputation of building a pretty strong machine. So the "GRUMMAN IRON WORKS" grew out of our design philosophy."

Mr. Schwendler always had the time to talk with the employees and it was out of that philosophy, and being a small group, there was an opportunity for them to talk with anybody on the floor and they could talk to us. It was considered a shirt sleeve organization and that was the beginning of what was later known as their "open-door policy.

In 1940 Mr. Schwendler had been elected vice president, and at the close of the war he was elected executive vice president.

Customer inquiries for the Grumman Goose, Widgeon, and Mallard put Grumman back into the commercial business, and Mr. Schwendler was chairman of the corporation's executive committee and was credited with being the "guiding light" for the new project, the Grumman Gulfstream I prop-jet, executive transport. Later the twin-jet Gulfstream II proved a very worthy successor.

George Skurla, chairman and president of Grumman Aerospace, called Mr. Schwendler "the chief architect of our design excellence that has become the hallmark and heritage of Grumman. He wasn't concerned only with technical applications; in a very quiet way he was a real humanitarian who demonstrated his concern over the years for all Grumman people." (Taken from the Grumman PLANE NEWS special memorial issue, January 1978)