Elwood Richard Quesada - Civilian and Family Life

Civilian and Family Life

On October 12, 1946, Quesada married Kate Davis Putnam, the granddaughter of Joseph Pulitzer (founder of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and a war widow (her first husband was Capt. Henry Ware Putnam who died in an air raid over Tokyo on May 25, 1945). His wife had two daughters from the previous marriage and they would have two sons of their own - Thomas Ricardo Quesada and Peter Wickham Quesada.

He was an executive for Lockheed Aircraft Corporation from 1953 to 1955. In 1957, he became President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Special Advisor for Aviation, leading to his appointment as first administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from 1959 to 1961.

Quesada became involved in professional sports when he became owner of the expansion Washington Senators in 1961. Quesada sold his stake in the team in 1963. He later became President and Chief Executive Officer of the L'Enfant Plaza Corporation, a private corporation that successfully partnered with the federal government to develop L'Enfant Plaza. He later became a member of the Temporary Commission on Pennsylvania Avenue, a precursor of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, which helped redevelop Pennsylvania Avenue NW between the White House and the United States Capitol.

He, his wife, and their two sons were involved in a dispute with Joseph Pulitzer III in 1986 over the control and value of their two sons' shares in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, an episode chronicled in "No Ordinary Joe" (p. 149-166).