Juan Trippe

Probabbly now days nobody knows the name Juan Trippe, "Who's that guy?" We say. But today I'll tell you about him and about his life.

Juan Terry Trippe, a pioneer of the American Comercial Aviation was born on June 27th in 1899, in Seabright, New Jersey, United States. After went his whole life to the Hill School he graduated from Yale University in 1921, but he discovered what he liked when he inherited a big family company called "New York Airways".

New York Airways was an air taxi company that transported to the city a lot of rich men, and after inherited it he bought another airline to make it bigger, an since its first flight between Key West and Havana he invested until create one of the world's biggest airline: Pan American World Airways or just "Pan Am". Even when the second world war produced a deep crisis it didn't affect Trippe's position on business because his airline started to grow worldwide not just to Europe (It flew to South America, Africa and even Asia crossing the pacific using modern airplanes like Boeing 707 or McDonell Douglas DC-8). During this, Trippe married to Elizabeth Stettinius, and with her he had 4 Children. After the war Pan Am went back to Europe and received the title of the world's biggest airline (It's important to say that it had its own terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport and its own huge building to set its headquarters in Manhattan). Trippe also received many awards, and some very important like the one that he received from the United States President Ronald Reagan, and this one was because of the impulses he gave to the aviation industry after he told the Boeing's owner that he wanted a bigger kind of airplane, because this request originated the Boeing 747 "Jumbo" that until today is one of the biggest airplanes and it's still a success on air business.

Juan Trippe retired from Pan Am on 1968 after he knew he had cancer and after spending 13 years with his wife in California, he died in 1981. Since that year his remains stay at the Green-Madera Cemetery in Brooklyn and his children, now adults live in Tucker's Town on Bermudas Islands.

Benjamin Prado Castillo

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