"Simmons helped Burbank airport soar"

Thursday, September 7, 2006

Simmons helped Burbank airport soar
BY CHARLES F. BOSTWICK
The Los Angeles (CA) Daily News


David Simmons, credited with helping turn Burbank's airport from a Lockheed
factory facility into a viable commercial airport, has died. He was 90. 

Simmons had gone to work at what was then Lockheed Air Terminal in 1946, as
major airlines departed for what is now Los Angeles International Airport.
Simmons was appointed Lockheed Air Terminal president in 1968, a year after
the airport's name changed to Hollywood-Burbank Airport to attract more
business, and was involved in negotiating its sale in 1978 to three
neighboring cities. 

"It came back again and became a significant commercial airport under his
time," said Viggo Butler, who worked with Simmons starting in 1973 and
succeeded him as Lockheed Air Terminal president in 1984. Simmon's
association with what is now Bob Hope Airport began as a teenager in 1930,
when he and his father attended the airport's dedication as United Airport. 

During World War II, he helped build and operate a secret air depot in East
Africa, then as a Navy officer helped refurbish and operate the airport on
Wake Island after its recapture from the Japanese. 

As president of Lockheed Air Terminal, besides running the airport in
Burbank, Simmons was responsible for Lockheed airline service operations
around the world, Butler said. 

After Burbank, Pasadena and Glendale bought the airport from Lockheed in
1978, Lockheed Air Terminal Inc. retained the management contract to run the
airport, Butler said. 

Simmons died Saturday from injuries suffered in an automobile collision near
his longtime home in Beverly Hills. Memorial services are pending.

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