Dwane Leon Wallace (October 29, 1911 – December 21, 1989) was an American aviation businessman and aircraft designer. He served as the president and chairman of the board of the Cessna Aircraft Company from 1935 until the 1970s, continuing then on the board as a director and consultant into the 1980s. Later known as the "Quiet Giant of Aviation", Wallace oversaw the company during a period of rapid and expansive growth within the general aviation industry, including development of the most-produced aircraft in history, the Cessna 172, as well as the popular Cessna Citation I business jet. He was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 2012,"Wallace, Dwane Leon," enshrinement statement, 2013, National Aviation Hall of Fame, Dayton, OH.Wings Over Kansas: Aviation Hall of Fame Inductees and was included in Flying Magazines list of the "51 Heroes of Aviation" in 2013, placing at number 11.
Early life Dwane Wallace was raised in Belmont, Kansas. He and his brothers Deane and Dwight, and sister Doreen, were children of Grace Opal () and physician Dr. Eugene Wallace. Grace's brother was aviation pioneer Clyde Vernon Cessna, founder of Cessna Aircraft Company. Cessna became the first planemaker-aviator of the Great Plains in the year Dwane was born, and gave the brothers their first airplane ride in an OX-5 Swallow in 1924.Phillips, Edward H., "Dwane L. Wallace: Kansas Visionary," from Barnstorming Wichita's Aviation Past, at WingsOverKansas.com April 1, 2007. Retrieved September 8, 2016Phillips, Edward H., "Clyde Cessna: Pioneer Aviator," from Barnstorming Wichita's Aviation Past, at WingsOverKansas.com August 29, 2007. Retrieved September 8, 2016Phillips, Edward H., "Cessna's Airmaster," from Barnstorming Wichita's Aviation Past, at WingsOverKansas.com August 24, 2008. Retrieved September 8, 2016Rowe, Frank J. (engineer) & Miner, Craig (history professor). Borne on the South Wind: A Century of Kansas Aviation, 1994, Wichita Eagle & Beacon Publishing Co., Wichita.Parke, Robert B. (Publisher), "Wallace" Flying Magazine, 50th anniversary special edition, Sept. 1977, p.257 Deneau, Gerald (Administrative Engineer, Commercial Aircraft Division, Cessna Aircraft Co.), An Eye to the Sky, 1962, Cessna Aircraft Co., Wichita, KS (semi-official company history, with exceptional detail and unusual candor about some products)Rodengen, Jeffrey L., [The Legend of Cessna], 3rd. ed., 2007, Financial Times. Lauderdale, FL:Write Stuff, Inc., . (Cessna-sponsored history, mostly derivative of others' writings, including those listed above)"Dwane L. Wallace" in Kansapedia, June 2013; rev. December 2014, Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, KS.Fowler, Glenn, "Obituary: Dwane L. Wallace, 78, Is Dead; Pioneer Leader at Cessna Aircraft,", December 23, 1989, The New York Times
One account describes Wallace as having made up his mind at age 10 to make his life in aviation.
In his early adulthood, Wallace entered the aeronautical engineering program at the Municipal University of Wichita, in Wichita, Kansas (one of the nation's first three such programs), and graduated in May/June 1933 (historian Ed Phillips says June 1932), the first (of many) to graduate that university with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering.
While at Wichita U., Wallace learned to fly from his uncle's test pilot, George Harte. He soloed in the Cessna CG-2 after only an hour and 45 minutes training, and advised changes to the glider that resulted in the Cessna CG-3. He first soloed in Travel Air biplane in March 1932, earning his private pilot's license in 1933. (Later he would advance to a commercial pilot license, with multi-engine and instrument-flight ratings.)
Early career Upon his graduation, in May 1933, Wallace entered the workforce during the depths of the Great Depression. His uncle Clyde Cessna's enterprise had been taken over by its investors, and had closed its doors—ejecting Clyde and his son, Eldon Cessna.Bissionette, Bruce, The Wichita 4: Cessna, Moellendick, Beech & Stearman, 1999, Aviation Heritage, Destin, FL. (from interviews with Matty Laird, Lloyd Stearman, Olive Ann Beech, Dwane Wallace, Herb Rawdon, Walter Burnham, and other principals).
However, Wallace was able to find work assisting one of his uncle's former business partners, aviation pioneer Walter Beech, at the newly formed Beech Aircraft Corporation in Wichita—which, ironically, was operating from rented space in the closed Cessna factory. Wallace assisted the development of the Beech Model 17 "Staggerwing" biplane, one of the more advanced aircraft of its time.
Takeover of Cessna Aircraft Co. In 1934, following Beech's relocation out of the Cessna factory, Dwane, with lawyer-brother Dwight, approached their uncle Clyde with the idea of a proxy fight to try to regain control of Cessna Aircraft, reopen the factory, and resume aircraft development and production.
Traveling the country to meet and persuade investors, and committing to them that the three family leaders would work with little or no pay, the Wallace brothers won the proxy fight. At a stockholders' meeting on January 10, 1934, they seized control of the company, with Clyde serving as figurehead president, while the Wallace brothers (Dwane as plant manager and engineer, Dwight as secretary-treasurer) ran the company.
Clyde's son, Eldon (also an aeronautical engineer), remained at the company until a disagreement with Wallace over salary led to his departure in summer 1935. In December 1935, tired of aviation and longing for his old farm, Clyde sold his stock in the company to the Wallace brothers, though remained the figurehead president. Within about a year, in October 1936, shortly before Wallace's 25th birthday, Clyde resigned, leaving Wallace fully in charge.
Cessna career For the next four decades, Wallace would lead Cessna, transforming it from a small-but-noted maker of light planes into the world's foremost producer of such aircraft, and a major source of many other types of civilian and military aircraft, including jets.
Throughout his career, Wallace was described as totally focused on the company. According to successor Russ Meyer, Wallace did not play golf or tennis, and had "absolutely no avocation [except] Cessna." Despite his achievements, and the scope of his wealth, power and influence, Wallace had a reputation for shyness and humility, and was known to humbly mingle and dine with factory workers. In his early years as company president, he also test-flew, raced and sold planes, painted them, pitched for the lunchtime softball team, fetched water for factory workers, and swept floors.
Shyness notwithstanding, according to his long-time second-in-command, Del Roskam, Wallace was a "hands-on" manager, "a good people-person," who would tour the factory, meeting foremen and workers, and talking through problems with them personally.
The Great Depression years Starting in 1933, Wallace aided Clyde and Eldon Cessna in developing their CR-3 aircraft, a much-improved variant on the Cessna Model A series, and also produced older Cessna DC-6A cabin monoplanes.
In 1934, Wallace, with help from Eldon and others, designed the Cessna C-34 (for "Cessna – 1934"), an exceptionally low-drag airplane, offering 162-mph speed with a 145-horsepower engine, and delivered the first one to a customer in 1935. The plane (and its variants) introduced wing flaps to Cessna, allowing a lower-drag wing, and easier landing in small areas. The plane won numerous races and competitions. When Wallace won a major national efficiency-and-performance competition—the Detroit News Trophy at the All American Air Races—for the third year, in a C-34 variant, the Cessna Aircraft design was awarded the trophy permanently, and given the title "World's Most Efficient Airplane." The notoriety boosted sales, and in 1936, the company sold 33 of the planes.
NOTE: Some controversy exists among historical accounts of the development of the C-34. Eldon Cessna, and historians acquainted with him, have credited its design to Eldon. However, most historical accounts (mostly produced by Cessna personnel or authors aided by the company while under the control of Dwane Wallace), credit the design to Wallace – some saying it originated in Wallace's mind while still in college, though Eldon Cessna is commonly credited with having been a contributing engineer, along with engineers Tom Salter and Gerry Gerteis.
In addition to advancing the Cessna airplanes' reputation, and sales, exhibition flying at county fairs and major events, and trophy racing, also brought prize money, which helped keep the company solvent—making exhibition flying and racing necessary duties of Wallace's early Cessna career.
The early years, during the Great Depression—while he took no salary—were reportedly extremely difficult for the company and Wallace, and photos of him at the time show an extremely gaunt man. One enduring legend says that at one point he only had five dollars in the company bank account.
Wallace added aircraft maintenance services to the company's business activity by February 1935.
In 1937, Wallace hired an executive secretary, Velma Lunt, in 1937, and married her in 1941. She became a licensed pilot, certified to fly multi-engine aircraft, and worked closely with Wallace for many years. The two remained married until Wallace's death. (Eventually the couple had four daughters: Linda, Karen, Diana and Sarah; the New York Times obituary calls the latter "Farah".)
In 1938, Wallace's review of twin-engined airplane market indicated opportunity for a new, inexpensive, light twin, and he began development of the Cessna T-50 Bobcat, which introduced twin engines and retractable landing gear to Cessna production aircraft. Though not formally trained in twin-engine aircraft, and not licensed for their operation, he taught himself to fly the Bobcat in 1939, as its test pilot. Gambling on a good market for the civilian plane, and potential military market for it upon the eruption of World War II in Europe, Wallace invested heavily in a new factory in May 1940. The gamble paid off.
World War II Under Wallace, the Cessna Aircraft Company survived until the early years of World War II, before American involvement, when Wallace was able to secure contracts with the U.S. and Canadian government to build training plane variants of the Bobcat for the Royal Canadian Air Force (which was already aiding Great Britain in the war), and, as the Cessna AT-8 advanced trainer, it was acquired by the thousands by the U.S. Army Air Corps, to train most U.S. transport and bomber pilots for the war, and for use as a light transport. By war's end, over 5,000 had been delivered, making Cessna, undeniably, one of the nation's major plane-makers, though only with small planes.
Additional wartime contracts—making parts of other manufacturers' military planes, and assembling Waco CG-4A combat transport gliders—helped Wallace's company grow. The government funding supporting Cessna's manufacture of sections of advanced all-metal aircraft, such as engine cowls for the Douglas A-26 and tails for the Boeing B-29, enabled Cessna to leap ahead of other pre-war light plane makers (most of whom were largely relegated to producing their original frame-and-fabric aircraft, or similar planes, soon made obsolete by the technological leaps of the Second World War).
During the war, Cessna became the first of Wichita's planemakers to win the Army-Navy "E" Award, an award for excellence given to only 3% of U.S. defense contractors. Cessna would win it a total of five times.
Postwar years