Eddie Rickenbacker: Racetrack Entrepreneur

Abstract

Edward V. (Eddie) Rickenbacker (1890-1973) is best remembered for hisrecord as a combat pilot in World War I, in which he shot down 26 Germa naircraft and won fame as America’s "Ace of Aces." From 1934 until 1963 he was general manager, president, and board chairman of Eastern Air Lines, which was for a time the most profitable air carrier in the United States. This paper shows how Rickenbacker’s fiercely entrepreneurial style of management was born in his early involvement in the automobile industry, and particularly in his career as an automobile racing driver from 1909 through 1916.