Who is Herb Kelleher?

For those who are not aware, Herb Kelleher is the co-founder and the former CEO of Southwest Airlines. He is known for his dynamic leadership. This is something that a lot of his employees know about him. He is already 87 years old right now which explains why he had to retire. During his term, Kelleher encouraged his employees to take themselves lightly but they have to take their jobs seriously.

It was pretty common for the employees back then to start singing while doing some announcements. It was fun for the passengers of the airline company too. During his term, he was coined to be one of the best if not the best CEO in America.

Born Herbert David Kelleher on March 12, 1931 in Camden, New Jersey. He is also known as Herb Keller, the co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Southwest Airlines until he retired on June 19, 2001 as president and CEO. He still remained as chairman of the board despite his retirement wherein he still maintained the control of schedule planning and the aircraft acquisitions. Some people speculated that the reason why he retired was because of his prostate cancer, but Herb Keller specifically stated that it was not about his cancer.

He said that cancer was not an issue but “it was just something I had to get through, and I tried to keep my sense of humor about it. But I had an agreement with the board that when I got to be 70, we ought to do something about succession.”