About This Stamp
General William "Billy" Mitchell was a professional soldier who served as an infantryman in the Spanish-American War and went on to achieve greater fame as an outstanding US combat air commander during World War I. The stamp art is based on an early photograph of Mitchell, and the foreground shows the SPAD XVI, which he used in observation and command roles during World War I.
Stamp Designer
Phil Jordan
Phil Jordan grew up in New Bern, North Carolina, and attended East Carolina University. After Army service in Alaska, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a degree in visual communications. He worked in advertising and in design at a trade association before joining Beveridge and Associates, Inc., where he provided art direction for corporate, institutional, and government design projects. A partner in the firm, he left after 18 years to establish his own design firm where he managed projects for USAir, NASA, McGraw-Hill, IBM, and Smithsonian Books, among others. He was Design Director of Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine for 15 years. His work appeared in numerous exhibitions and publications such as Graphis and Communications Arts. A past president of the Art Directors Club of Metropolitan Washington, he was an art director for the U.S. Postal Service from 1991 to 2014. A resident of Falls Church, Virginia, he is a retired glider pilot and a member of the Skyline Soaring Club.
Illustrator
Paul Salmon
A native of Lynchburg, Virginia, Paul Salmon attended the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary in Richmond, Virginia, earning a B.F.A. in graphic design.
After serving on active duty in the U.S. Navy for two years, Salmon began a professional career as a graphic artist with two top graphic design firms in Washington, D.C. Realizing he wanted to be a full-time illustrator, he moved to Los Angeles and was represented by the Graphic Artist Agency. Salmon traveled throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico creating on-the-job art for training films for the Alexander Proudfoot Company.
A freelance illustrator for more than 35 years, Salmon has worked with clients such as NASA, Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine, Time-Life Books, NBC, the National Geographic Society, and various other government agencies. Three of his paintings were included in the “Artist and the Space Shuttle” exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum. As a documentary artist for NASA, Salmon was commissioned to document four space shuttle launches and the first space shuttle landing at the Kennedy Space Center. He has numerous paintings in the permanent collection at NASA.
Salmon’s art ranges from pen-and-ink drawings to full-color and mixed-media paintings. His preference is a painterly style. When he’s not painting or drawing, he enjoys playing golf. He blames his passion for the game on needing the exercise.
Salmon lives and works in Burke, Virginia. He created the stamp art for First Supersonic Flight (1997) and Gen. William “Billy” L. Mitchell (1999). Sally Ride (2018) is his third project for the Postal Service™.