1928 Lockheed Air Express

Valiant Steamship Transportation Company was founded in 1897 when the Milwaukee based Morse Family Lines purchased Detroit based Lake Erie Steamship Transportation Company. The merger of these two companies created the then largest single operator of bulk carriers in the Great Lakes and set off a cascade of other mergers and consolidations. Then CEO of Morse Family Lines (MFL), Marvin Purcell Morse, became CEO of the new Valiant Steamship Transportation Company (VSTC). Under his leadership, the line enjoyed slow but steady growth although it did not maintain its position as the largest single company operating on the lakes. Automobile manufacturing kicked into high gear at the close of the first decade of the new century and the company prospered. In 1917, as America entered World War 1, Marvin's eldest son Richard, then age 22, volunteered to aide in the war effort. From his corporate office in Detroit, Marvin managed deliveries of iron ore pellets and materials critical to wartime production whilst Richard made a name for himself as a motorized scout and later a scout pilot operating high over the Benelux. After the war, Richard was lauded with military decoration. Perhaps more impactful was Richard's experiences in the air. Richard never lost his passion for flight, not when he returned from the war and not when he took over as CEO of VSTC when Marvin fell ill in 1926.

Richard's first task as CEO was to continue the project that had confounded his father for several years: a public offering. During the war, VSTC had become one of the wealthiest private companies in the nation. The Morse family wanted to expand their holdings but needed to raise additional capital before doing so. Marvin had spent the last few years off his time as CEO preparing the company to go public and some believe that the stressful nature of the process is what led him to his relatively early retirement. Richard was able to complete the process and VSTC's public offering went off without any major hitches in 1927. Richard's relations with shareholders and the new board of directors was strained from the beginning. Richard had a remarkably casual style of management - MFL had been a family business and even after the merger, Morse family leadership had sought to develop close friendships with company personnel. Many of VSTC's ship captains were past their prime but still worked for the company because Richard prized loyalty over ambition. The board saw Richard's position as CEO as a vestige of nepotism which had infected the previously privately owned company. The board's attitude led Richard to distance himself more from the board and shareholders which only served to amplify their perception that he was not qualified or proficient in his role. In 1929, Richard purchased a Lockheed Air Express ostensibly for use as a sort of corporate shuttle. However, the board believed that the purchase was superfluous and this perception was not abated by the fact that Richard used the aircraft to perform wild daredevil maneuvers for the public. The board claimed this was Richard acting childishly while he claimed it was good publicity for a plane in a Valiant corporate livery to perform for the public. Furthering the appearance that the aircraft was Richard's personal toy was it's name, Gertrude, rumored to be in reference to Richard's first girlfriend. A year after the purchase, in 1930, Richard's quarrels with the board had reached the level that he infrequently occupied an office in VSTC's headquarters in Detroit. Instead, he worked out of cabins on company's ships, claiming that proximity to the company's core interest allowed him to better manage corporate affairs. This situation is what allowed events in 1930 to end animosity between the Morse family and shareholders.

Richard Morse had set up his office in one of VSTC's older smaller ships for the winter of 1929, the Paul Revere. The ship was captained by one of Richard's closest friends in the company and ran a route that made frequent stops. The frequent stops allowed Richard to maintain semi-frequent contact with his managerial staff. At every port, Richard would receive a large bag or paperwork and would exchange that new bag for another bag full of paperwork and instructions he had drawn up while at sea. When Richard's secretary met him in the port of Rochester, there was no way of knowing this would be the last time Richard Morse would be seen alive. Later that cold November evening, a strong gale began to whip up Lake Ontario. The Revere infamously rode rather low in the water when heavily loaded as it was on the evening of November 20th, 1930. In the days weeks and months that followed, speculation ran rampant as to what might fate might have befallen the Revere, her crew, and CEO Richard Morse. With no radio call for help or any signs of distress, clues were sparse. It wasn't until the 70s that the wreck of the Revere was found flipped upside down in the bottom of Lake Ontario. The death of Richard Morse was a tragedy for VSTC and it was the end of Morse family control. Once he was presumed dead and the immediate mourning period ended, the issue of succession arose in the company. In a blow to the Morse family, shareholders voted to make shipping industry legend Winston Westbrook CEO over Richard Morse's younger brother Wilson.

Winston Westbrook's leadership saw rapid rationalization of VSTC's company assets. Good old boys employed by the Morse family were replaced by staff chosen for their low wages not their character. Gertrude, Richard's plane, was sidelined indefinitely. Westbrook had no background in aviation and sources close to him reported that he was terrified of flying machines. He refused to step foot in the hangar that housed the Air Express. Presumably he would have preferred to sell the aircraft but decided against it out of fear of appearing to disrespect the memory of the tragically deceased Richard. And so the aircraft sat for all of 1931 sequestered in a hangar in Grand Rapids. Westbrook, though, was not a man to leave an idle dime untouched. The aircraft was an asset and so even if he was personally opposed to its existence, he sought to find some use for it. A use presented itself as the USPOD solicited bids for an new operator on a mail service running from Detroit to Milwaukee via Grand Rapids. Thus, the creation of the Valiant Steamship Transportation Company's Air Division. The business was profitable enough to avoid being axed. The profit margins meant that in 1935 when VSTC reorganized as the Valiant Holding Company, the Air Division, by then generally referred to as the Valiant Air Division, was a safely established part of the business.

[Edit: The chunks of text are more nicely laid out. I wanted paragraphs but AE doesn't want me to do that so instead you get "little" chunks of text that are split into what look like stanzas. Also, sorry there's so much lore - there's won't be quite such a preponderance of history in following posts but I had a lot to establish given that this airline was founded 40 odd years after its parent company and under somewhat unconventional circumstances.]