Taiwan Group’s Leader Is Symbol of High-Tech Shift : Aerospace: Central figure in McDonnell Douglas deal, David Huang had a long engineering career in U.S.

After a long and distinguished career in the American aerospace industry, during which he helped send the first astronauts to the moon, David Huang might have been expected to retire quietly to his Calabasas Park home.

Instead, the 71-year old engineer has devoted the last 10 years to building an aerospace industry half a world away from Southern California. On Wednesday, he emerged as a central figure in one of the most significant international ventures ever in the aircraft business--McDonnell Douglas’ $2-billion preliminary agreement to sell a 40% stake in its commercial aircraft business to a consortium from Taiwan.

Huang, as chairman and chief executive of Taiwan Aerospace Corp., is a living symbol of the international shifts now taking place in high technology. A 1949 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Huang had a role in the stunning series of technology advances that established America as the unchallenged economic force after World War II.

Now, with concern over America’s declining competitive edge widespread, he is helping to create the technological base in one of the fast-growing Asian nations that appear destined to play an ever-more-important role in the global economy.

“The world economy is moving more toward high technology, automation and quality control, and Taiwan will have a role,” Huang said in a telephone interview from his Taipei office. “I hope my endeavor here will promote economic cooperation and goodwill between the Chinese and Americans. I am proud of the role I played in American aerospace and I’m pleased I have the opportunity to help Taiwan make progress in this industry.”

Huang, who became an American citizen in 1955, has reason to be proud. He helped develop the experimental X-1 rocket plane that Col. Chuck Yeager flew through the sound barrier. As a leading engineer at Rocketdyne, he helped develop the rockets that propelled the first astronauts, winning an award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the 1969 Apollo mission.

Since returning to Taiwan in 1981, Huang has played a central role in developing that country’s advanced Indigenous Defense Fighter--earning the title “Father of the IDF.” From 1981 to 1989, he also served as acting president of Taipei’s Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology, which develops military aircraft.

Now, Huang has turned his attention to commercial aviation, which he believes could bolster an already robust Taiwanese economy. Under the tentative agreement reached Wednesday, Taiwan Aerospace will invest up to $2 billion for as much as 40% of a new company that McDonnell Douglas will create from its Long Beach-based commercial aircraft operation.

The deal has caused alarm among some members of Congress and others who fear that McDonnell Douglas will transfer technological know-how that will help Taiwan mount an economic challenge to the United States.

But Huang said the joint venture marks the beginning of a long-term, symbiotic relationship.

“Some (Americans) are saying that the United States has such a great technological capacity--why is this partnership needed?” Huang said. “We have to face the future together. In Taiwan, we are working on propulsion, avionics and advanced (aviation) materials . . . We’ve made great strides in (military) defense aviation. And, we have future leaders in aerospace--8,000 graduate scientists and engineers at the Chung Shan Institute.”

Huang’s former American colleagues describe him as first-rate engineer who will be a strong leader for Taiwan Aerospace.

“He is a very bright guy, an outstanding engineer,” said Mathew Ek, a retired vice president of engineering at Rocketdyne and Huang’s former boss. “He understands the American mind a lot better than most of those guys in Taiwan. He was pretty thoroughly Americanized.”

But that very quality, Ek added, could be a detriment not only to the U.S. aerospace industry but to McDonnell Douglas as well.

“Dave will be an excellent guy to squeeze every last bit of information out of our American engineers,” Ek said. “I imagine that’s why he has that job. He is excellent at asking the right questions. He is an advanced type of thinker. He will be there swimming around Douglas’ brain cells for every bit of information that he can get. It makes a lot of sense.”

Huang was director of rocket component engineering at the Canoga Park-based Rocketdyne. Ek said he was responsible for developing the world’s first rocket engine whose power level could be controlled, a key breakthrough that would be important on the lunar descent rocket and on the space shuttle.

“He had a quiet way about him--he wasn’t a table pounder,” Ek said. “In this country, success is often determined by how much noise you make. If he didn’t have that quiet Mandarin character, if he had been noisy and aggressive, then he would have gone a lot further.”

Fred Peinimann, an official at Rocketdyne, said: “On my first day at work, he personally greeted me. That really surprised me, because he was supposed to be an old guard, stone-faced executive. He was a forceful manager. He made sure things got done and got done his way.

“A company doesn’t own the mind of a person,” Peinimann said. “We have to face the fact that it isn’t 1945 any more where everybody was bombed to bits and we were great. The rest of the world has a right to catch up.”

Huang is clearly determined to help Taiwan do that.

“Taiwan Aerospace is a fountainhead to improve industries here as a whole,” Huang said. “Aerospace is the key for improving overall productivity because to maintain this industry you need highly skilled labor, highly automated production facilities and quality control.”

The Taiwanese government considers aerospace and other high technology industries vital to the country’s future. Rising wages and labor shortages have begun to undermine Taiwan’s traditional industries, such as consumer electronics, textiles and computer parts.

In addition, Taiwan’s well-educated populace is increasingly reluctant to accept low-skill jobs.

With currency reserves of some $75 billion, the government has the money to try vaulting the country into the top echelon of the world economy. Earlier this year, the government announced that it will spend $300 billion over the next six years on roads, phones, transit services and other infrastructure projects.

The government provided 30% of the initial $250 million in seed capital for Taiwan Aerospace, and is prepared to make additional equity investments as well as provide loans or loan guarantees.

Such heavy government support made the McDonnell Douglas deal possible, and Huang said the American firm has much to gain not only from Taiwan’s financial support, but also from its manufacturing skills. The agreement is designed to give McDonnell Douglas the wherewithal to proceed with the MD-12 wide-body commercial aircraft.

For some former colleagues, Huang’s move to Taiwan is reminiscent of a move made nearly 40 years ago by another key Asian scientist. In 1955, Dr. Tsien Hsueh-shen, head of Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and one of America’s most important aerospace scientists, announced that he would leave the United States for the People’s Republic of China.

By 1959, Tsien was head of China’s rocket development and by 1970 he had led that nation to launching a satellite.

Huang retains strong ties on both sides of the Pacific. His 35-year-old son, also named David, is a rocket propulsion engineer at TRW in Redondo Beach. The son became interested in rockets, he recalled, because his father discussed his engineering work at the family dinner table.

He said his father retains an attachment to the China he remembered before its fall to communism in 1949. “He came here in 1945 to do graduate work, intending to return afterward. While I am Americanized since I was born in this country, he still has a feeling for his homeland.”

Huang said he has no plans to join his father in Taiwan. He said the nucleus of the family, including his mother, will remain in Los Angeles. He described his father as an avid reader with an interest in military history.

Tobey Yu, a retired Clearwater, Fla., businessman who has known Huang since 1944, described his friend as “a patriotic American.” “He’s loyal to his friends and he’s dedicated in everything he undertakes,” Yu said.

Times staff writer Ralph Vartabedian contributed to this story.