Najeeb Halaby

The American University of Beirut has announced that Najeeb E. Halaby, former chairman of the Board of Trustees and a trustee emeritus, passed away on July 2, 2003.

The statement called Halaby a brilliant and distinguished international figure, who was at the helm of the BOT during the worst years of the conflict in Lebanon, and said he made use of his international relations and connections to try and protect AUB during the war.

Najeeb Halaby was born in Dallas on November 19, 1915, the only child of a Syrian American father and an American mother who was a native of Texas. He attended Stanford University, the University of Michigan, and graduated with a law degree from Yale in 1940.

An avid flyer, Halaby first soloed when he was sixteen. He joined the US Navy as a fighter pilot in World War II, and went on to served as a sky diver and a naval test pilot. He logged many sorties on innovative aircraft such as the early Northrop flying wing models which had no fuselage or tail assembly. He made a record altitude flight to 46,900 feet on the Bell YP-59, a development version of the first American jet-powered aircraft, the XP-59A. He also served as chief flight instructor of the US Navy test pilot school at Patuxent River.

Halaby subsequently served in domains such as commercial aviation, law, education, human rights, and business. In 1961, Halaby was appointed by President John F. Kennedy as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. He was the first Arab-American to rise to such a position in the US government and was the second FAA administrator. During his term in office, drastic improvements were made to various avionics and commercial flight safety systems, and the US supersonic transport (SST) program, eventually killed by the US Congress, was initiated.

In 1965, Halaby joined Pan American World Airways as a senior vice president, becoming president in 1968, chief executive in 1969, and chairman in 1970. He was forced to resign in 1972, as Pan American struggled with mounting financial difficulties coinciding with one of the worst slumps in the airline industry, a general recession, and the high cost of introducing into commercial service the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, which he championed.

After leaving Pan Am, Halaby wrote a book,"Crosswinds: an Airman's Memoir (Doubleday, 1978), ran an international law practice and headed a company that provided aviation technology to Arab countries.

Halaby was elected to the AUB BOT in 1973, then chairman of the board in 1983, and trustee emeritus in November 1985.

Najeeb E. Halaby is survived by his wife Libby Cater and his son Christian and daughters Alexa and Lisa. In 1978, Lisa Halaby married King Hussein and became Queen Noor al-Hussein of Jordan.

Najeeb E. Halaby received countless awards and honors in his life. He was head of Save the Children's Organization in Jordan and worked with several humanitarian organizations including the Hariri Foundation, the King Hussein Organization, the Jordanian Association, Aspen Association, the Eleanor Roosevelt Foundation for Cancer Research, as well as with Harvard and Stanford Universities.

back to top