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| Title | Finding aid for Papers of Willis M. Hawkins, 1949-1998. |
| Creator | Hawkins, Willis M. |
| Extent | 80 boxes. |
| Biographical Note | Willis Moore Hawkins (1913-2004) was born in Kansas City, Missouri on 1 December 1913. As the only child of Willis Moore Hawkins, Sr. and Elizabeth Daniels, who divorced shortly after his birth, Willis was raised by his mother. He was one of five students in the first graduating class of Leelanau School, an experimental high school in Glen Harbor, Michigan that emphasized the outdoors and science. After earning his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1937, he began a career that would span over 60 years at Lockheed Aircraft Company, starting as a junior detail engineering draftsman in Burbank, California. Hawkins advanced through a number of key engineering positions at Lockheed, becoming engineering department manager in 1944 and chief preliminary design engineer in 1949. From 1953 to 1957 he was director of engineering at Lockheed Missiles and Space Company (LMSC), a division he helped to found. He became Assistant General Manager in 1957, Corporate Vice President in 1960, and Vice President and General Manager of LMSC Space Systems Division in 1961. He served as Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's Vice President-Science and Engineering from 1962 to 1963 and 1966 to 1969, then advanced to Senior Vice President-Science and Engineering and was elected a member of the Board of Directors in 1972. Although he took early retirement in 1974, he remained with Lockheed as a senior advisor and board member and in 1976 returned as Senior Vice President and President of the Lockheed-California Company, a position he retained until 1979. From 1979 to early 1980 he served the corporation as Senior Vice President-Aircraft, from which he again retired but remained as Corporate Senior Advisor until his death in 2004. During his long Lockheed career, Hawkins played a major role in the design and development of airplanes, missile systems, and space vehicles. He served as a structural component designer on the P-38 Lightning fighter, the Hudson bomber, and the Lodestar transport. He contributed significantly in the design of high-speed fighters such as the P-80 Shooting Star (first U.S jet fighter), F-104 Starfighter (supersonic interceptor aircraft), and transports such as the C-130 Hercules, Constitution, and Constellation. He directed the formation of Lockheed's first major organization for Weapon System Analysis, which defined the optimum anti-submarine warfare systems with the support of the Office of Naval Research. He also directed the pilotless aircraft division and led the development of the X-7 ramjet test vehicle and X-17 reentry test vehicle, which formed the basis for the formation of LMSC. As chief engineer and then as assistant general manager of the Missiles and Space Division, he led the advanced design teams that developed the concepts leading to the Navy's Polaris submarine launched ballistic missile as well as the Agena space vehicle and Discoverer program. In addition to his work at Lockheed, Hawkins contributed his ideas and advice to the government, military, and industry establishments through his consulting for a variety of private and public institutions, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Army, the Navy, the Department of Defense (DoD), and the National Research Council (NRC). With the NASA he served as a member of the Space Program Advisory Council (SPAC) from 1974 to 1978, as a member, then Chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP) between 1975 and 1984, and as a member of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC) from 1977 to 1983. He was a member of the NRC Naval Studies Board (NSB) from 1982 to1986 and 1988 to1992, member, then Chairman of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board (ASEB) from 1967 to 1975, and a member of the NAE Space Applications Board (SAB) from 1975-1978. He was also Vice-Chairman (1970) and Chairman (1971) of the Aerospace Industry Association (AIA) Aerospace Technical Council and, in 1979, Chairman of the Defense Science Board of the Department of Defense. Hawkins married Anita Stanfill on 22 June 1940; they had three children, Nancy Gay (Bostick) (b. 1943), Willis M. III (b. 1945), and James Walter (b.1956). Widowed in 1982, Hawkins remarried Fredericka Betts in 1984 and later divorced in 1990. He died at his home in Woodland Hills, California on September 28, 2004 of natural causes at the age of 90. |
| Scope and Content | The Willis M. Hawkins Papers, 1920-2009 (80 boxes) document the successful aerospace engineering career of Hawkins at Lockheed, the relationships between industry, military, and government, and the development of airplanes, missile systems, and space vehicles during the second half of the 20th century. Effort was made to maintain the original order in which the collection arrived at The Huntington Library and the arrangement reflects Hawkins' organization of materials largely by subject, project, or organization. The bulk of collection materials date from the 1950s to the early 1990s and consists of correspondence, memoranda, presentation and meeting materials, reports, blueprints, clippings, speeches, writings, and ephemera. The collection is especially rich in correspondence; in addition to Hawkins' incoming and outgoing correspondence is the copied correspondence of other Lockheed executives with whom Hawkins worked closely during his tenure. Hawkins' involvement in consulting and professional organizations was often in conjunction with his role at Lockheed, and researchers should thus be aware that materials are often dispersed through the series. For example, materials related to specific committees are frequently represented in both the Correspondence and Consulting Files Series. |
| Notes | All inquiries about this collection should be directed to the Dibner Curator, History of Science, Medicine & Technology. |
| Date | 1949-1998. |
| Provenance | Gift of Nancy G. Bostick, October 1, 2008. |
| Subject |
Hawkins, Willis M. -- Archives. Aerospace Industries Association of America. Aerospace Technical Council (Aerospace Industries Association of America) Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (U.S.). Naval Studies Board. Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (U.S.). Space Science Board. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Lockheed-California Company. Lockheed Corporation. Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. NASA Advisory Council. National Research Council (U.S.) National Research Council (U.S.). Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. National Research Council (U.S.). Board on Army Science and Technology. United States. Army Scientific Advisory Panel. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel. Aeronautical engineers -- United States. Aeronautics -- United States. Aerospace engineering -- United States. Aerospace engineers -- United States. Aerospace industries -- Employees. Aerospace industries -- United States. Aircraft industry -- Employees. Aircraft industry -- Military aspects. Aircraft industry -- United States -- History -- 20th century. Airplanes. Airplanes -- Design and construction. Airplanes, Military. Antisubmarine aircraft. Ballistic missiles. Cheyenne (Attack helicopter) Constellation (Transport planes) Engineering -- United States. Engineers -- United States. Hydrogen as fuel. Intercontinental ballistic missiles. Jet planes, Military. Liquid hydrogen. Lockheed aircraft. Supersonic transport planes. Stealth aircraft. Burbank (Los Angeles County, Calif.) California -- History -- 1950- |
| Form/Genre |
Awards. (aat) Clippings. (aat) Documents. (aat) Ephemera. (aat) Letters (correspondence) (aat) Negatives (photographic) (aat) Photocopies. (aat) Photographic prints. (aat) Scrapbooks. (aat) Technical drawings. (aat) |
| Department | Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscripts Department. |
| Call Number | mssHawkins papers |
| Accession Number | mss 02523. |
| Physical Collection | Willis M. Hawkins Papers. |
| Digital Collection | Finding Aids, Huntington Digital Library |
| Physical Description | 66 p. |
| Digitization Specifications | Original finding aid converted into PDF document by E. Wittenberg, 2011-06-16. |
| Date Digital | 2011-06-16. |
| DCMI Type | text |
| Digital Format | |
| Original Finding Aid | Finding aid prepared by Brook Engebretson and Emily Wittenberg, April 27, 2011. |
| Citation Information | Finding aid for Willis M. Hawkins Papers, Huntington Digital Library, San Marino, California. |
| Restrictions | Images in this collection are for scholarly research; please review the Huntington Library's copyright information: http://cdm16003.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/about. For purchasing images for publication please review our permission to publish policy: http://www.huntington.org/huntingtonlibrary.aspx?id=590. |
| Cataloging Notes | Arranged in the following ten series: Series 1: Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Development, Series 2: Calendars and Diaries, Series 3: Consulting Files, Series 4: Correspondence, Series 5: Personal Files, Series 6: Photographs, Series 7: Presentations and Speeches, Series 8: Publications and Writings, Series 9: Subject Files, and Series 10: Oversize. |