Researching Edward Carlson

Carlson was born in Tacoma, Washington. As a youth, he helped his single mother make ends meet by working as a gas station attendant, as well as other odd jobs. Carlson entered the University of Washington in 1928 and, while a student, began his hotel career as a pageboy, then elevator operator, then bellhop. He dropped out of college in 1930, lacking funds. He worked half a year as a seaman, then worked a summer job at Mount Baker Lodge, and beginning in autumn 1931 traveled the country in an unsuccessful stint as a salesman for a device that mechanically blocked (shaped) felt hats. Returning to Seattle, he resumed hotel work, first as a room clerk and then as assistant manager of Seattle's Roosevelt Hotel, next as manager of the President Hotel in Mount Vernon, Washington. On June 26, 1936, he married Nell H. Cox.

In April 1937, Carlson returned to Seattle to manage the Rainier Club, Seattle's preeminent private club." He retained the position until joining the Navy in 1942. At that time the club awarded him a military membership, which became a regular membership upon his return from World War II.

Carlson finished World War II as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Supply Corps, having served in Seattle and then in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Returning from the war, he took a position as assistant to S. W. Thurston, president of Western Hotels, Inc. (later Western International Hotels, then Westin Hotels). Within a year he had been named vice president, then became successively executive vice president (1953), president (1960), and finally chairman and CEO (1969). Westin merged with United Airlines in 1970, and Carlson became CEO of the newly formed company, UAL Corporation, a position he held from 1971–1979. In his first two years, he turned the nearly bankrupt airline profitable.

Carlson is credited with bringing the 1962 World's Fair—the Century 21 Exposition—to Seattle. His napkin sketch of tower with a revolving restaurant on top, inspired by the Stuttgart Tower, was the origin of the Space Needle. Harvard Business School named Carlson one of the great business leaders of the twentieth century.

Carlson was (along with Henry Broderick) one of the two leaders of the successful 1948 initiative that re-legalized the sale of liquor by the drink in Washington State.