Herb Kelleher
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Herbert D. Kelleher (born March 12, 1931) is the co-founder, Chairman and former CEO of Southwest Airlines (based in the United States).
Kelleher was born and raised in Haddon Heights, New Jersey. He has a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University and a law degree from New York University. At Wesleyan he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is married to the former Joan Negley and they have four children. The Kellehers moved to Texas intending to start a law firm or a business.
Kelleher and one of his law clients, Texas businessman Rollin King, created the concept that later became Southwest Airlines on a cocktail napkin in a San Antonio Texas restaurant. From its birth in 1971--after overcoming a year's worth of legal challenges from competitors who tried to keep it grounded--Southwest has succeeded by daring to be different: offering low fares to its passengers by eliminating unnecessary services and avoiding the now-descredited "hub-and-spoke" scheduling system used by other airlines in favor of building traffic in such secondary airports as Albany, Chicago-Midway (instead of Chicago-O'Hare) and Orange County.
During his tenure as CEO of Southwest, Kelleher's colorful personality created a corporate culture which made Southwest employees well-known for taking themselves lightly--often singing in-flight announcements to the tune of popular theme songs--but their jobs seriously: Southwest has never had an in-flight fatality (except for a plane that ran off the end of the runway at Chicago's Midway Airport and killed a person in a car) and is consistently named among the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in Fortune magazine's annual poll.
