The Boeing company has been around for more than 100 years, since William E. Boeing became interested in planes. For most of that time, the company was the gold standard in aircraft manufacturing. The Boeing company bought up other aviation companies any time it got the chance, and incorporated their experts into its research and development division. In the 1990s, Boeing acquired its most notorious rival, McDonnell Douglas. Many in the industry say that merger was the turning point for Boeing, although the general public wouldn't know for years. Boeing's corporate culture deferred to its engineering experts, while McDonnell Douglas was run to produce corporate profits.
Yes the McDonald Douglas merger was bad. Phil Condit (good engineer, solved the tail wake problem) went looking for manufacturing space in CA, and Harry Stonecipher said we at McD do mostly military, you do mostly commercial lets marry the two and have sex... I’ll screw you.
ReplyDeleteMike Sears who came along as president of McDonald Douglas (now division of Boeing) went to jail for his part of screwing the Air Force on tanker contracts.
Condit was a skirt chaser married to a socialite and a nasty divorce left him shunned by polite society in Seattle so moved Boeing headquarters to Chicago. The problem was he moved engineering away from where the work was done killing there long standing strength of working together.
All of us knew the poop was heading for the fan but didn’t have the time table. I retired at the right time.
xoxoxoBruce
Their, not there... must proofread BEFORE publish.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoBruce