JAMES N. KREBS

1924 - 2022

KREBS, James N. Aerospace Visionary James Norton Krebs, a veteran of General Electric's aircraft engine business and a big thinker who dreamed up the world's most successful jet engine, died at home in Marblehead on July 20. He was 98 years old. Mr. Krebs began working as a GE test engineer in 1946, four years after America's first jet flight. He joined a group of aerospace visionaries who helped propel the world into the jet age, shrinking the globe forever. Mr. Krebs is best known for his work on the high-bypass turbofan, the quiet, powerful, fuel-efficient engine that is ubiquitous in the skies today. Every two seconds, Mr. Krebs figured, a plane takes off with a GE engine bearing his design stamp. In 1982, Mr. Krebs was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his contributions to jet engine design and development. By the end of his GE career in 1985, Mr. Krebs was GE vice president of military and small commercial aircraft engines and head of engineering and manufacturing operations for engines at GE's River Works in Lynn, overseeing 10,000 employees and a $2 billion annual business. GE had vaulted to No. 1 in the marketplace for commercial and military planes. Mr. Krebs oversaw the development and production of the engines for such planes as the F-117 stealth fighter, B-1 bomber, Blackhawk helicopter, DC-10 and Boeing 747 "Jumbo Jet." As a GE vice president, he led the company's underdog victory in the Great Engine War, a seven-year battle with Pratt and Whitney to build a better engine for the nation's premier fighter jets. The prize was a $12 billion U.S. Air Force contract, and GE won 75 percent of it. One of Mr. Krebs's greatest accomplishments was to conceive the idea for and oversee the initial design of the most lucrative jet engine ever. The core of this engine was originally on the B-2 bomber, but Mr. Krebs saw that it could be modified to power a midsized commercial plane — what was to become the Boeing 737 in the U.S. and the Airbus 320 series in Europe. Under a joint venture begun in 1971 between GE and the French, more than 30,000 of these engines, known as the CFM56 family, have been sold, generating thousands of jobs and more than $1 trillion in business. In 1992, Mr. Krebs received the Reed Aeronautics Award, the highest honor of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, for his innovations on advanced aircraft engines and engine components. Mr. Krebs was an engineer with an artist's eye. He was a lifelong collector of contemporary works on paper and provided major support to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for the purchase and exhibition of works by 21st century emerging artists. Mr. Krebs was born in Sauk Centre, Minn. in 1924 and graduated from Northwestern University in 1945 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He was a brilliant, optimistic, gracious man who set high standards but unfailingly sought to encourage those around him. His family and friends will miss his clarity and his light heart forever. For more about Mr. Krebs, please go to the Eustis & Cornell Funeral Home website.

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