Edward Curtis Wells was senior vice president and served on the board of directors of Boeing Company. He helped to design the Boeing 747 and the B-17 Flying Fortress. He was known as the “elder statesman of aviation.”
Wells joined Boeing Company’s engineering staff in 1931 and was named Boeing’s chief engineer in 1943. He received the following honors: the Daniel Guggenheim Medal (1980), the Fawcett Aviation Award (1944), and the Lawrence Sperry Award from the Institute of the Aeronautical Sciences (1942). Ed Wells was a member of the Willamette University Board of Trustees from 1955 until his death in 1986.