George J. Mead
| George J. Mead | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
George Jackson Mead December 27, 1891 Everett, Massachusetts |
| Died | January 20, 1949 (aged 57) Hartford, Connecticut |
| Residence | West Hartford, Connecticut |
| Nationality | U.S. |
| Citizenship | U.S. |
| Occupation | engineer; entrepreneur; executive; director; public servant |
| Years active | 1915–1949 |
| Known for | Aircraft engineer and executive of Pratt & Whitney and United Aircraft; president of NACA |
| Notable work | Innovator and lead developer of the Pratt & Whitney Wasp series; as head of the aeronautical section of the National Defense Advisory Commission, Mead helped the U.S. to maximize its aircraft production for World War II |
| Spouse(s) | Cary Hoge Mead [wrote a biography of her husband] |
George Jackson Mead (December 27, 1891 Everett, Massachusetts – January 20, 1949 Hartford, Connecticut) was an American aircraft engineer. He is best known as one of the chief founding team members, together with Frederick Rentschler, of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft. Mead and Rentschler left Wright Aeronautical with the plan to start their own aviation-related business; they founded Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in July 1925. Their first project was to build a new, large, air-cooled, radial aircraft engine of Mead's design, which soon came to be named the Wasp. The first Wasp model was the R-1340, and a large series of Wasp models and Hornet models followed. Mead, as Vice President of Engineering, was the head of engineering for Pratt & Whitney from 1925 to 1935. He later left Pratt & Whitney and its parent United Aircraft. He served as the president of the U.S. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and he served as head of the aeronautical section of the National Defense Advisory Commission during World War II, as a manager in the U.S. government's war materiel production effort.
Mead was born in Everett, Massachusetts on December 27, 1891, to Dr. George Nathaniel Plumer Mead and Jennie Henrietta Mathilda LeMann Mead.
He graduated from the Choate School in Wallingford, CT in 1911 and attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but left in 1915 without graduating, owing to health problems.
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