George Conrad Westervelt

A U.S. Navy engineering officer stationed at Puget Sound Navy Yard in 1915-1916, Westervelt had developed a serious personal interest in aeronautical engineering beyond his naval duties. His technical background complemented William Boeing's capital and commercial instincts, and together they designed the B&W Model 1 floatplane that launched the Boeing enterprise. Westervelt departed before the company was formally incorporated, recalled to active naval duty, and never received a financial stake in the venture.

George Conrad Westervelt occupies an unusual position in aviation history: a co-founder of what became the world's largest aerospace company who departed before the company was officially incorporated and whose subsequent contributions to aviation, while distinguished, occurred entirely outside the enterprise he helped start. His name survived only in the W of the B&W Model 1 — a small memorial to a partnership that lasted barely a year but launched one of the most consequential industrial enterprises of the 20th century.

Westervelt was a trained engineer with the U.S. Navy's Construction Corps, a branch of the service responsible for the technical evaluation and management of naval vessels and, increasingly in the early aviation era, aircraft. His posting at Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton, Washington, brought him into contact with William Boeing around 1915, and the two discovered a shared obsession with aircraft design. Westervelt provided the aeronautical engineering knowledge that Boeing lacked; Boeing provided the capital and commercial drive that Westervelt could not supply on a Navy officer's salary.

Their collaboration produced the B&W Model 1 design, which Westervelt developed primarily from an aeronautical standpoint — calculating lift, drag, and structural requirements — while Boeing focused on materials procurement and manufacturing. The aircraft's successful first flight in June 1916 validated both men's work.

Westervelt was recalled to active naval duty shortly thereafter, when the U.S. Entry into World War I made his engineering expertise urgently needed. He left Seattle before the formal company incorporation on July 15, 1916, and while Boeing apparently made some effort to maintain his involvement from a distance, the demands of wartime naval service made that impossible. Westervelt continued a distinguished Navy career, retiring as a rear admiral, and remained connected to the aviation industry through various advisory and consulting roles, but he never returned to the company his technical expertise had helped create.