Interior and Completions Veteran Herb Ward Dies at 94

Aviation industry veteran Herbert H. Ward, 94, passed away at his home near Wichita on October 17. Ward worked in aviation for almost 70 years, starting his career working at  Beech Aircraft and Boeing in the late 1940s. In the early 1960s, he took a position with Bill Lear at Learjet, where he worked his way up to production superintendent. After a 13-year tenure at Learjet, he began work at Air Research in Los Angeles, California, where he headed up interior and completions sales.

Ward continued a career in aircraft interior and completions working for Sun Stream in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as manager over completions, where he also started a new path in sales of VVIP interiors in small and midsize jets; for the Dee Howard in San Antonio, Texas, where he headed up the VVIP interior installation team; and for Associated Air Center in Dallas, where he became the v-p of sales for VVIP widebody aircraft. Ward retired from Associated in 1997 but not long after joined GreenPoint Technologies as a consultant assisting with VVIP Boeing BBJ completions.

In 2001, he spearheaded Completion Air located in East Alton, Illinois, to do VVIP widebody completions. That company evolved into what is known today as West Star Aviation. In 2005 in a joint venture, he founded EAS Completions in Addison, Texas, where he and his team designed and installed VVIP interiors in three Boeing 737 aircraft for the Kingdom of Thailand. He again retired in 2009 at 81 years old.