L. Welch Pogue Award |
Recipients of the L. Welch Pogue Award are recognized for their service to the industry and efforts that have helped shape modern international commercial air transportation.
The L. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation was first presented to Mr. Pogue himself in 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the Chicago Convention, the legal blueprint for post-World War II expansion of commercial aviation. Mr. Pogue, a former chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board, served as a U.S. delegate at the International Civil Aviation Conference adopting the Convention, which remains the legal and regulatory basis for the conduct of international aviation. A tribute to the achievements of Mr. Pogue and his colleagues, the Pogue Award is presented annually to an individual considered a visionary and preeminent leader of contemporary aviation.
Recipients of the L. Welch Pogue Award
Dave Barger Giovanni Bisignani Marion C. Blakey John R. Byerly Robert L. Crandall Donald Engen Robert T. Francis II Jane F. Garvey Peggy Gilligan Bob Goldner Paul Gretch Alfred E. Kahn Herbert D. Kelleher John S. Kern Gary Kelly Susan McDermott | Paul V. Mifsud Norman Y. Mineta Professor Helen Muir Oscar Munoz Professor Brian O’Keeffe L. Welch Pogue John E. Robson Jeffrey N. Shane Rodney E. Slater Frederick W. Smith Delford M. Smith Andrew B. Steinberg Mary Street Henri Wassenbergh Jürgen Weber |
L. Welch Pogue
L. Welch Pogue was a visionary leader whose knowledge, drive, and determination were fundamental in the development and expansion of civil aviation worldwide.
L. Welch Pogue was born in 1899 on a farm near Grant, Iowa. He attended Grinnell College and the University of Nebraska and received legal degrees from the University of Michigan Law School and Harvard University.
Mr. Pogue joined the law firm of Ropes, Gray, Boyden & Perkins in 1927. In 1938, Mr. Pogue began his tenure as general counsel of the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) in Washington, D.C. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Mr. Pogue chairman of the CAB, a post he held until returning to private practice in 1946.
During his years with the CAB, Mr. Pogue negotiated aviation policies that helped make civil aviation a safe, viable industry within the United States and throughout the world. He represented the United States as a delegate to the 1944 International Civil Aviation Conference in Chicago, which he mentioned in a speech at the age of 100: “Few of the millions of passengers who fly the world each year have even heard of the Chicago Convention, but it is one of the postwar world’s most enduring agreements, opening the skies of most of the world to peaceful passage of aircraft and setting up rules for air traffic control and the formation of aviation treaties between nations.”
Building on his work in Chicago, in 1946 Mr. Pogue served as vice chairman of both the Bermuda Agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States and the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly.
After resigning from the CAB, Mr. Pogue established his law firm, Pogue & Neal, in Washington, D.C. The firm represented aviation-industry clients, as well as clients in other industries. In 1967, Pogue & Neal merged with a Cleveland-based firm to form Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. Mr. Pogue retired from legal practice in 1981.
L. Welch Pogue died in 2003 at the age of 103. In recognition of his service to the United States, Mr. Pogue was laid to rest at Quantico National Cemetery in Quantico, Virginia.