Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II: Interview with Donald W. Nyrop

Titles: Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II: Interview with Donald W. Nyrop (Supplied title)

Description: BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Donald W. Nyrop was born in Elgin, Nebraska. He attended Doane College and eventually law school at George Washington University. He found a job at the Civil Aeronautics Authority (CAA) as a lawyer and was eventually drafted into Air Force training school. After the war he became the head of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and later president of Northwest Airlines. During his time at Northwest he became one of the leaders of the global commercial airline industry. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Life during the Great Depression; working as a teacher and basketball coach; moving to Washington D.C. to attend college; life in Washington D.C.; being drafted into the Air Force; being involved with the airplane allocation process after World War II; participation in the Brass Hat Squadron; traveling the world to decommission planes; accomplishments as head of CAB; becoming president of Northwest Airlines (NWA); dealings while at NWA: fleet composition, passenger traffic, implementation of new technology, revolutionizing passenger flights, standardization of parts, evolution of advertising, non-airline investments, airline safety, meteorology and weather forecasting; the closing of CAB and the struggling airline industry that followed.

Dates

• 12/23/2006 - 05/03/2007 (Interviews conducted 12/23/2006, 4/27/2007 and 5/3/2007) (Creation)

Creation

• interviewer: Bekke, Douglas
• interviewee: Nyrop, Donald W.
• interviewer: Fogerty, James E.

Identifiers

• Library Call Number: OH 115
• Accession Number: AV2008.26.28

Holding Type: Oral History - Interview

Project

• Oral History - Project, MHS Collection, project: 'Minnesota's Greatest Generation Oral History Project: Part II' <OH 115>

Quantity: 5 hours sound cassettes 78 pages transcript

Format

• Content Category: sound recordings
• Content Category: text

Measurements

• 219 minutes length

Subjects

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