Bom on the Montana frontier Oct. 12, 1900, Humphrey Wallace Toomey graduated from Annapolis in 1922 as an aeronautical engineer. He rose from a pilot's cockpit to an airline vice presidency and close identification with the rapid growth of air transport in the Americas.

Following his training and service as a naval aviator, LCDR Toomey resigned from the Navy in 1929 to pilot an S-38 Sikorsky amphibian on a trail-blazing flight from Bridgeport, Conn., to Buenos Aires. The flight, made without radio over territory new to aviation, laid the groundwork for commercial routes to South America by NYRBA, New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Airline. On May 1, 1930 Toomey inaugurated the first inter-American night-flying airmail service, for NYRBA, and subsequently pioneered many domestic airline routes on the East Coast of South America and the interior of Brazil. In 1931 NYRBA was acquired by Pan American World Airways.

Toomey continued with Pan Am as Chief Pilot and Operations Manager in PAA's newly organized Brazil-Argentina sector, and helped to establish a series of airports for PanAm and to organize the Brazilian national airline, Panair do Brasil. In 1932 he made the first official survey flight up the Amazon River. This flight won Toomey membership in the New York Explorers Club.

During WWII he managed the Military Contract Division of PanAm, known as the "Cannonball" service, which carried supplies to all theaters of war via Brazil. From 1946 to 1952 Toomey served as Manager, Latin American Division, Miami, FL. In 1952 as a PanAm Vice President he returned to Rio de Janeiro, responsible for operations in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.

In April 1960 another milestone in Toomey's airline career and in Latin American aviation occurred when together with then President Juscelino Kubetscek he christened the first jet to fly in South American skies, PanAm's 707 "Clipper Brasilia", linking the U.S. and the southern hemisphere by jet service through Brazil's ultramodern new capital.

Toomey retired from PanAm in 1962. His long and distinguished career in civil aviation was rewarded by U.S. service medals and recognitions, and in Brazil by presentation of many decorations including in 1964 the highest award Brazil can bestow upon a foreigner, the "Ordem Nacional do Cruzeiro do Sul".