Herb Kelleher

Kelleher was a lawyer in San Antonio when his client Rollin King sketched a triangle of Texas cities on a napkin in 1966 and proposed a cheap airline. Kelleher's legal training was the first asset: rival carriers spent years trying to stop Southwest in court, and he won. Running an airline was the gap, which he filled by keeping costs low with one aircraft type and quick turnarounds, and by becoming chief executive himself in 1981.