Deaths on January 15

William T. Piper, American engineer and businessman, founded Piper Aircraft (b. 1881)

William Thomas Piper Sr. (January 8, 1881 – January 15, 1970) was an American airplane manufacturer, aviation businessman, oil industry businessman, and engineer. He was the founding president of the Piper Aircraft Corporation and led the company from 1929 until his death in 1970. He graduated from Harvard University in 1903 and later became known as "the Henry Ford of aviation".Prior to Piper's successful business career he was an officer in the United States Army serving in the Spanish–American War. He was then in the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War I. In total Piper served 18 years in the Army. When he returned from World War I he was primarily an investor and businessman in the oil industry until 1929 when he became an investor in the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation. He went on to purchase the soon-renamed Taylor Aircraft Corporation and head it until reorganizing the company into Piper Aircraft in 1937, eventually seeing tremendous success and becoming a well-known aviation figure of the 20th century. Piper Aircraft sold over 80,000 units when he oversaw the company, cementing Piper as a global aerospace manufacturing power.Piper was posthumously inducted in the National Aviation Hall of Fame class of 1980. The William T. Piper Memorial Airport in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania is named in his honor. Piper's son William Piper Jr. took over the company after Piper Sr. died in 1970. At the time of Piper's death in 1970, Piper was worth an estimated $55 million dollars (over $347 million in 2017 dollars). Piper's net worth would have ranked him within the Forbes 400 richest people in the world at the time of his death.