Northrop Millar Collection

Richard Millar (1899-1990) was born in Denver, Colorado in 1899. At the age of eight, his family relocated to Long Beach California. It was in Long Beach, that he initially became interested in aviation after attending the first aviation meet at Dominguez Field in 1910, as well as due to his work assisting Earl Daughtery, a local pilot, with building and maintaining airplanes.

Millar attended Occidental College, but left during World War I to become a commissioned officer in the United Sates infantry. After the war, Millar attended UC Berkeley and graduated in 1921. After graduation, Millar began a career in finance, and was eventually promoted to Vice President of the Los Angeles office of Blair & Co. Inc.

In 1926, Millar took an interest in the work of Donald Douglas, and was asked to serve on the first board of directors at Douglas Aircraft Company, Inc. in 1928- a position he held for ten years. For the first five years Millar was at Douglas Aircraft, he was the chairman of the finance committee and contributed in setting up the first revolving credit for an aircraft manufacturing company in America. During the following five years, Millar served as chairman of the executive committee.

In 1939, Millar became the General Manager of Vultee Aircraft Corporation and he would later go on to become President of Vultee, presiding over the expansion of Vultee’s manufacturing floor due to the demands of World War II. During his tenure, Millar also witnessed the merge of Vultee with Consolidated Aircraft.

Millar became Director and Vice-Chairman of Northrop Aircraft Inc in 1946. He was also a member of the board from 1948-1984, and a chairman of the board on an interim basis from 1948-1951 and once again in 1975 for seven months.

Throughout the years, Millar would continue to remain supportive of Occidental College, as a member of the board of trustees in the 1950s, and in 1953 donated his collection of 600 rare books on the history of aeronautics to Occidental.