Obituaries : Ben Rich; Guided Lockheed’s ‘Skunk Works’
Ben R. Rich of Oxnard, who headed Lockheed’s fabled “Skunk Works” during development of the Stealth fighter plane and wrote a book about his 40-year career with the company, died Thursday at age 69.
Rich, who headed the secretive section from 1975 until he retired in 1991, died at Ventura’s Community Memorial Hospital after a lengthy illness.
Less colorful than the unit’s original chief, Clarence (Kelly) Johnson, Rich was an adept manager whose talents were nationally recognized. Last year he was awarded the Pentagon’s highest civilian award, the Distinguished Service Medal.
Rich kept the F-117A Stealth bomber’s creation so lean, he noted in his 1994 book, “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed,” that he offered to refund some of the federal government’s money.
“The Air Force told me that it had no bookkeeping methods for taking back money,” Rich wrote, “so I gave them $30-million worth of free engineering improvements on the airplane.”
Production and deployment of the Stealth plane earned Rich and the entire Lockheed and Air Force team the 1989 Collier Trophy.
The Skunk Works was created by Lockheed at the end of World War II to come up with the United States’ first operational jet fighter. It got its folksy name because it was originally housed in a tent in Burbank near a plastics factory that emitted a noxious odor. During Rich’s tenure, the operation moved to Palmdale.
“We encouraged our people to work imaginatively, to improvise and try unconventional approaches to problem-solving, and then got out of their way,” he stated in the book co-written by Leo Janos.
“By applying the most common-sense methods to develop new technologies, we saved tremendous amounts of time and money, while operating in an atmosphere of trust and cooperation both with our government customers and between our white-collar and blue-collar employees,” Rich wrote. “In the end, Lockheed’s Skunk Works demonstrated the awesome capabilities of American inventiveness when free to operate under near ideal working conditions.”
Born in Manila, Rich earned his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley and his master’s degree in the same discipline from UCLA. In 1968, he graduated from Harvard University’s advanced management program.
He joined Lockheed in 1950 and helped design the F-104 bomber and the U-2 spy plane, among others. He became senior engineer for advanced programs in 1963, vice president for fighter programs and preliminary design in 1972, vice president and general manager of the Lockheed Skunk Works in 1975, and president of the Lockheed Advanced Development Co.--the formal name the informal engineering unit adopted in 1990.
Rich is survived by his wife, Hilda, of Oxnard; a son, Michael, of Santa Monica, and a daughter, Karen, of Santa Barbara.
The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the USC/Norris Cancer Hospital or to the Flight Test Historical Foundation at Palmdale.
