Sheffield Phelps
American businessman
Sheffield Phelps (1921–2006) was an American businessperson, and a prominent figure in the art community. He was the scion of an old New England family who moved to Washington state and rose to become president of Seafirst Mortgage company, the Seattle Opera Board, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet. He left behind a remarkable record in business and civic life, most notably as a financial and organizational pillar for the Pacific Northwest Ballet.
Descended from a family that landed in Massachusetts in 1634, he grew up in New England, preparing for college at St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts and attending Yale University. He served as a United States Marine Corps Major during World War II, flying 92 missions with reconnaissance planes and earning the Distinguished Flying Cross.
He was president of the Seattle Opera board when it helped launch the Pacific Northwest Ballet. He joined the new venture as board president, and in 1977 helped recruit the company's founding artistic directors, Kent Stowell and Francia Russell. The company's headquarters, the Phelps Center, bears his name. "Without him, there would not be Pacific Northwest Ballet," Stowell said.
The public source identifies “Sheffield Phelps” as american businessman. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sheffield, Phelps and American.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16017526. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2006, 1634 and 1977.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sheffield Phelps” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.