Herb Kelleher

Kelleher was born and raised in Haddon Heights, New Jersey, where he graduated from Haddon Heights High School. He has a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University and a Juris Doctor from New York University. At Wesleyan he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He is married to the former Joan Negley and they have four children. The Kellehers moved to Texas intending to start a law firm or a business.

Legend has it that Kelleher and one of his law clients, Texas businessman Rollin King, created the concept that later became Southwest Airlines on a cocktail napkin in a San Antonio restaurant. From its birth in 1971—after overcoming a year's worth of legal challenges from competitors who tried to keep it grounded—Southwest has succeeded by daring to be different: offering low fares to its passengers by eliminating unnecessary services and avoiding the now-descredited "hub-and-spoke" scheduling system used by other airlines in favor of building traffic in such secondary airports as Albany, Chicago-Midway (instead of Chicago-O'Hare) and Orange County.

During his tenure as CEO of Southwest, Kelleher's colorful personality created a corporate culture which made Southwest employees well-known for taking themselves lightly—often singing in-flight announcements to the tune of popular theme songs—but their jobs seriously: Southwest has never had an in-flight fatality, although a 6 year boy was killed on the ground when a Southwest jet skidded off a runway at Midway Airport in Chicago on December 8, 2005. Southwest is consistently named among the top five Most Admired Corporations in America in Fortune magazine's annual poll. Fortune has also called him perhaps the best CEO in America. Mr. Kelleher was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2004. He was there for 15 years.

On July 19th, 2007, Southwest Airlines announced that Kelleher would step down from the role of Chairman and resign from the board of directors in May 2008, though he would remain a full time employee for another five years.