Harley Sanford Jones

Class of 1926: Air Force brigadier general

Born Nov. 10, 1902, in Fox Lake, Wisconsin, Harley Sanford Jones graduated from Ripon College with a degree in economics. He was a member of Phi Delta Theta/Alpha Phi Omega and Partners in the Legacy, and was commissioned through ROTC. He received the Distinguished Alumni Citation in 1976.

He began his military career as a second lieutenant commissioned into the Infantry in 1926. In 1940, he joined the United States Army Reserve but transferred to the Air Corps that September. Assigned to the Central Procurement District at Detroit, Michigan, that December, Jones served as the Air Force procurement representative at the Studebaker, Packard and Ford Willow Run plants for four years, then at the Boeing Aircraft plant in Seattle, Washington.

Between 1940 and 1957, he worked for Boeing and played a prominent part in the production of the B-17, B-24, B-25, B-29, B-50 and B-47 bombers, the C-97 and C-119 cargo transports, the F-102 interceptor and the F-84F and F-105 fighter bombers, the Bomarc missile, and the Rolls Royce V-1650, Pratt and Whitney R-2800 and J-57 engines.

During World War II, he served in the Far East Air Force at Tokyo, Japan. He was chief of supply there from July 1947 through October 1949.

Following the war, he was assigned to Air Force Material Command. He served as Air Force plant representative at the Boeing aircraft plant in Wichita, Kansas; chairman of the B-47 production committee; command of the Northeast Air Procurement District, AMC, at Boston, Massachusetts; and deputy for production in the Directorate of Procurement and Production, Air Materiel Command.

He was named a brigadier general in 1954. Upon his retirement from the Air Force in 1957 after 31 years of service, Jones received the Distinguished Service Medal – the highest peacetime decoration – for his implementation of production techniques. In his retirement, he managed his family estate in Friday Harbor, Washington, with his wife, Jane Shaw Jones, Class of 1926.

He died Dec. 28, 1997, at the age of 95.