Darrell Marmion, a 35-year Boeing employee, says that some of his early memories involve the 747. In fact, the liaison engineer saw the very first 747 as a 5-year-old while visiting his father at work in 1968.
“My dad’s name was Henry Richard Marmion, known as Hank here at Boeing,” Darrell said. “He was the manager in the mock-up shop for the 747 when it first started up in 1968. They were responsible for the flight deck portion of the airplane and doing mock-up construction.”
Hank was part of the team that designed, built and rolled out the first 747 in 1969. This team of engineers, mechanics, administrators and more were dubbed “The Incredibles” for rolling out the brand-new airplane in time for flight test in 16 months — an unprecedented feat at the time.
Darrell’s love for aviation started with that first trip to see the 747 and the encouragement of his father.
“My dad had a passion to be an engineer, and he only went to two years of college. He always wanted me to become an engineer,” Darrell said. “He was the motivation to go get through my schooling, because I was tempted to quit myself two years into it because it was so difficult. And my dad gave me the focus to keep going.”
