Gerard F. Vultee, for whom the Vultee Aircraft was named, had worked as an engineer at Douglas Aircraft and Lockheed Aircraft before becoming Lockheed's chief engineer in 1928.

While at Lockheed, Vultee designed the Lockheed 8 Sirius for Charles and Anne Lindbergh and began design work on a single-engined transport but the Stock Market Crash of 1929 had placed Lockheed in financial trouble and it could not afford to build this new aircraft. Vultee left Lockheed in 1930 and began looking for a financial backer for his transport. Vultee's search ended when he met Errett Lobban Cord in September 1931. Cord, the head of the Cord Corporation, owned two aviation companies, Stinson Aircraft and Lycoming Motors, two automobile companies, Auburn and Dusenberg, and five other engine manufacturers. In early 1931, Cord had founded two airlines and he saw Vultee's high-speed transport as a replacement for the Stinson tri-motors these airlines were operating. In January 1932, Cord formed the Airplane Development Corporation as a subsidiary of the Cord Corporation, with Vultee as chief engineer, to begin work on the Vultee V-1 transport. The company initially used a hangar in Burbank, California but moved to Glendale six months later.
In early 1932, Cord faced labor problems with his airlines pilots and he sold both airlines to American Airways in exchange for seven percent of the stock of American's parent company, the Aviation Corporation. By late 1932, Cord had purchased 30 percent of the stock in the Aviation Corporation and after a bitter stockholder's battle, Cord gained control of the company.

The U.S. Congress passed the Air Mail Act of 1934 which prohibited any air mail contractor from holding an interest in any other aviation enterprise except landing fields. The result was that the Aviation Corporation was required to divest American Airways which was promptly renamed American Airlines. Another result was that the Cord companies were restructured, i.e., the Aviation Manufacturing Company was formed as a division of the Aviation Corporation and the corporate hierarchy was now the Aviation Company-Aviation Manufacturing Company-Airplane Development Company. (Note that none of these companies were named Vultee.) Gerard Vultee was named vice president and chief engineer of the Aviation Manufacturing Company and work began on an attack bomber for export. The facilities at Glendale proved too small for production and the company moved to an abandoned plant in Downey, California in June 1936.

Although Vultee aircraft sold well overseas, the U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC), superseded by the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) on 20 June 1941, had ignored their aircraft, and in January 1938, Vultee and his wife flew east on a sales trip. While returning to California, Vultee took off from Winslow, Arizona on 29 January, flew into a snowstorm and crashed in the mountains killing both occupants of the aircraft.

E.L. Cord sold his interests in the Aviation Corporation to a syndicate in 1937 which resulted in a number of corporate reorganizations. In November 1937, Vultee was reorganized as the Vultee Aircraft Division of the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation; this was the first time that a company was named Vultee. In 1939, Stinson Aircraft became a division of Vultee and on 14 November 1939, Vultee Aircraft, Incorporated was established to acquire the assets of the Aviation Manufacturing Company making Vultee a subsidiary of the parent company, the Aviation Company. The next major reorganization occurred in November 1941 when Vultee acquired majority ownership of the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation. Two boards of directors, headed by the same person, were maintained to control the two companies but this changed on 17 March 1943 when the two companies merged and were renamed the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation with headquarters in San Diego, California. Stinson remained a division of the new company…….
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The Vultee Aircraft Corporation was very largely the brainchild of Gerard Freebairn Vultee, formerly chief engineer at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during the period that Lockheed was owned by the Detroit Aircraft holding company. When Detroit Aircraft went into receivership, Vultee was out of work. He drifted from job to job for a couple of years, but eventually he went off on his own in pursuit of financial backing for some ideas that he and Vance Breese had for a single-engine passenger monoplane while they were at Detroit.

Who was Jerry Vultee?                      Courtesy: http://www.dmairfield.com/people/vultee_je/index.htm

GERARD FREEBAIRN "JERRY" VULTEE
Gerard "Jerry" Vultee (1900-1938) has been described as a little known man who played a leading role in the drama of aviation in America. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he showed an interest in aircraft at an early age, building model planes. The Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk in his infancy, and as he grew he had the opportunity to watch aviation grow with him from infancy to the brink of the dominance enjoyed by military aircraft in World War II.
In 1912 his family moved to Ocean Park, California, and he attended Cal Tech from 1921-23, studying aviation science. As a student project he designed and built a full-sized aircraft.
In 1923, Art Mankey, who was then in charge of engineering at Douglas Aircraft, hired Vultee as a structural aeronautic engineer. Also at Douglas was Jack Northrop who was working on an idea for a commercial aircraft, the Vega. Since Douglas was doing military aircraft at the time, Northrop took his idea to mentor Alan Loughead (spelling later changed to "Lockheed.") In 1928, Northrop invited Vultee to join him and they built the Vega, one of the most popular planes of its day. Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh all flew and adored it.
In 1928, Northrop left the young company, and Vultee became Lockheed's new chief engineer. He designed the Sirius for Lindbergh which brought him some notoriety. Some of the innovations he helped introduce were the engine nacelle or cowling, the fully retractable landing gear, replaceable fuselage panels, the V-type windshield, and Vultee large wing flaps that made it possible to reduce landing speeds.
But genius was not enough in the face of the Great Depression. Controlling interest in Lockheed was purchased by the Detroit Aircraft Corporation. In 1931 it went into receivership, and Vultee was replaced as chief engineer by Richard Von Hake. Vultee accepted a job developing and teaching drafting and engineering courses at the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute. He also took a post as chief engineer for the E.M. Smith Corporation (EMSCO) in Downey. But the Depression smothered new designs at EMSCO as well and he left.
E.L. Cord (Cord car company) was an entrepreneur looking for new fields, and had founded an airline. He needed a new commercial plane. Fortunately, Vultee had been working with Vance Breese on the V-1 (V for Vultee), which was just what Cord wanted. With Cord's financial support, Vultee and Breese established the Airplane Development Corporation (ADC), a division of the Cord Corporation. Vultee was vice president.
The V-1 was a popular aircraft, and American Airways ordered 10. Completed as a prototype in 1933, it was the fastest plane of its kind with a top speed of 235 mph. When modified by American Airways it was known as the V-1A. A license to manufacture the plane was sold to Russia. On another front, Vultee met Sylvia Parker, a Hollywood debutant, while surfing in Southern California. They married on Jan. 19, 1935, and flew to Mexico City for their honeymoon in a new V-1A.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) created an unexpected reversal of fortune by ruling that all commercial passenger planes be mult-engine. The V-1A was single engine, and was thus grounded for passenger use. Cord reorganized his holdings, and Vultee Aircraft abandoned its commercial aircraft enterprises.
Vultee was aware of the growing threat of war on many fronts, and converted the plane to a dive-bomber known as the V-11. When orders began to roll in he needed a larger production site, and he recalled the EMSCO plant in Downey, CA. He relocated there from his cramped quarters in Glendale, and renamed the small Downey airstrip Vultee Field. By 1938 500 people were employed here.
The Vultee planes built in Downey flew in the Spanish Civil War, and in defense of the Chinese Nationalist government. They were purchased by both Russia and Germany, and in 1937 the Downey plant was renamed the Vultee Aircraft Division of the Aviation Manufacturing Corporation. Jerry and Sylvia Vultee were flying home from Washington, D.C. after presenting a new aircraft to the Army when their plane crashed, killing them both. It was January, 1938, and a black day for aviation, but the company Vultee founded went on in his tradition of innovation and discovery.
Some issues surrounding the Vultee's death were clarified by this letter to Time Magazine February 21, 1938:
"Sirs:
Gerard F. Vultee ("Jerry"), not Gerald, my close friend and business associate for many years, was killed when the cabin monoplane he was flying with Mrs. Vultee crashed on the flat top of Wilson Mountain [TIME, Feb. 7]. ... Caught in a local snow-storm and blizzard with no training in blind or instrument flying, he was unable to find his way out. The fire occurred after the crash, not before." DON P. SMITH Vice President

Vultee Aircraft Los Angeles, Calif."In 1941 Vultee Aircraft purchased controlling interest in the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation in San Diego. The company became Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, or "Convair," and produced more than 13,500 aircraft during the allied war effort in World War II.  UPLOADED: 01/09/06 REVISED:

Vultee Field and Aircraft Plant Downey California: The War Years 1939-1945