Steven Udvar-Hazy was born in Budapest in February 1946. In 1958 his family fled the Soviet occupation of Hungary and he eventually arrived in New York "without a word of English."
By 1968 he had graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles and also gained his pilot's licence, which he maintains. As a student he started his first company to do airline scheduling and planning. Then in September 1973 Hazy and two partners, Louis and Leslie Gonda, formed Interlease Group, later to become ILFC. They bought a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 and leased it to Aeromexico in what is thought to be the commercial airline industry's first operating lease.
The company went public in 1983 and a year later made its first bulk purchase of new aircraft, ordering 10 Boeing 737-300s. The first Airbus order (for three A320s) followed in 1987. ILFC was acquired by the American International Group in 1990, in the process making Hazy a billionaire. Already chief executive, in 2002 he took over as chairman of ILFC, having previously been president.
He has also given $65 million to the Smithsonian Institution to help build a second National Air and Space Museum in Washing-ton. The Steven F Udvar-Hazy Center will open in December.
Source: Airline Business
