Curtiss had won a contract from a group in Princeton, New Jersey, to start a flying school for young men in college, but they were short an instructor.
Captain Thomas Baldwin, at Newport News, called a meeting with the pilots/instructors, and asked them for suggestions on getting another instructor for Princeton.
He survived a terrible crash there in which the student he was instructing froze on the stick in a nose dive, and was killed.
In 1940, Southee became an inspector for what was then called the Civilian Aeronautical Authority, the predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration.
During World War II, he was one of the leaders of the highly successful Civilian Pilot Training Program.