This was interrupted when he enlisted in the United States Army Corps of Engineers towards the end of World War II.
He spent five years total at Price Waterhouse and shortly after he left, qualified as a Certified Public Accountant.
He moved to Atlanta to take the top financial position at Southern Airways, another local service airline, for three years.
[7] Muse's last stop before Southwest was as CEO and part-owner of Detroit-based Universal Airlines, a sizeable "supplemental" (the CAB term-of-art for charter airline) with three businesses: flying parts for auto manufacturers, flying freight for the military and passenger charters.
[8] Lamar Muse was elected for a three-year term as president and CEO of what was then known as Air Southwest on January 1, 1970.
The embryonic carrier had just survived a bruising legal battle to preserve its right to fly as an intrastate airline under the economic regulation of the Texas Aeronautics Commission (TAC).
[9] Founder Rollin King and cofounder Herb Kelleher got the carrier to this point, but neither then had any experience running an airline.
However, Midway expansion would require a substantial investment by Southwest and it was noted that it would result in larger roles for Muse and his son.
However, in the eyes of the CAB (which economically certificated the airline)[22] and investors[23] (who made Muse Air the best funded startup to that date[24]), it was the presence of Lamar (the chairman of the board and original CEO), that mattered.
The airline obtained some relief in May 1982, when Braniff collapsed, allowing Muse Air to backfill some of that lost capacity.
[1] It was only later that investors understood Muse Air was in significant part an arena for the expression of father-son dynamics.
Key business model characteristics, such as no-frills, short-haul single-class service on 737s, fast aircraft turnarounds and high aircraft use, the use of smaller airports closer to downtown, stimulation of discretionary travel through low fares, a "fun" airline culture, a focus on rock-solid financials, employee profit-sharing, its Dallas home, the name of the airline, its ticker symbol ("LUV") – all date from the Muse era, many his personal initiatives.
For instance, a 2014 book Texas Takes Wing,[27] written for the 100th anniversary of Texas aviation, thanks Kelleher and Southwest's corporate historian, yet native-Texan Lamar Muse appears only indirectly - once as the husband of his wife (credited with Southwest's flight attendant uniforms) and once as father of Michael (credited with the founding of Muse Air).