Skippy Smith

Howard "Skippy" Smith (1913 – 2003) was an American stunt skydiver, pilot, and entrepreneur. During World War II he founded and managed the Pacific Parachute Company in San Diego, California, the first national Black–owned and managed defense production plant.

Early life and family Howard "Skippy" Smith was born in 1913, in Birmingham, Alabama. His father had been a professor at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) in Tuskegee, Alabama. During the Great Depression, Smith moved to Los Angeles with the hopes of becoming a pilot. Smith made some 150 jumps during his short career as a stunt skydiver. Gravelly was killed in 1939 during an air show, when he borrowed a parachute and it was missing a pilot chute. During its first year in business the Pacific Parachute Company produced nearly 50,000 parachutes, working as a contractor for Standard Parachute. They were awarded in 1943 the National Negro Business League's Spaulding Award. The Office of the Coordinator of Information–Foreign Information Service (COI–FIS) hired photographer Russell Lee to photo-document Smith and the Pacific Parachute Company. At the end of World War II, the Pacific Parachute Company closed.