On December 17 1903 , two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first successful flight in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. On this day a new world was born. William E. Boeing, who was a timber baron in the northwestern United States, attends an air show. He becomes fascinated about flight, and buys a shipyard, then converts it to an airplane manufacturing facility. He teams up with a friend, U.S. Navy Lieutenant George Conrad Westervelt, and together they build their first airplane.

In July 1917 the Boeing Airplane Company’s test pilot Herb Munter flew 2 Model C’s for Navy Officials in Pensacola Florida. The U.S. Navy will buy 50 of them. This will mark the beginning of a long relationship between the U.S. Navy and The Boeing Company.

World War 1 ends and the aircraft manufacturing business begins to slow down, So in order to stay in business, Boeing begins to manufacture boats. The boats are ultra fast, and it is rumored that prohibition-era bootleggers purchase a few of them.

Boeing will maintain a strong relationship with the U.S. Navy and expand into building for the U.S. Army Air Corp. In 1920, Boeing began providing health insurance for its employees. In 1927 United Airlines was born from Boeing and will begin airmail service. As World War 2 approaches and aircraft manufacturing begins to expand rapidly, Boeing will make a strategic business decision to build large aircraft. Bold innovation will mark Boeing’s engineering philosophy .The B-17 Flying fortress and the B-52 Stratofortress are two well known military flying systems produced by Boeing. On September 28th 1956, William E. Boeing died on his yacht in Puget Sound

In the late 1950’s and 1960’s, the golden age of Jetliner air passenger service began. The Boeing 707-120 four engine Jet liner will make it’s first flight. In addition, Boeing will expand into the space program and build 8 lunar orbiter spacecraft to take pictures of the moon and build many satellites. It will build the CH-46 helicopter for the U.S. Navy which is a workhorse flying system still today.

In the early years The Boeing Company was a tight group of engineers. The second president of the company was Edger Gott who was founder Bill Boeing's cousin. Following Edgar as president were Clairmont L. Egtvedt and Philip G. Johnson. Both Mr. Egtvedt and Mr. Johnson were hand picked out of the University of Washington’s school of Engineering. Philip Johnson would run The Boeing Company during World War 2 until his death in 1945. After Mr. Johnson, a Havard Lawyer would be appointed to run the company. William M. Allen (1945-1968) would make a critical decision to move the company into the commercial airline business with the Boeing 707. Thornton Wilson and Malcolm Stamper who were both engineers would follow William Allen as president of The Boeing Company. Both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stamper were heavily involved in the design and production of the Boeing 747. In fact, Malcolm Stamper was the longest serving president in Boeing history. Malcolm Stamper was the grandfather of, Jay Stamper, unsuccessful nominee for the U.S. Senate in the 2014 South Carolina Democratic Party primary while presidential candidate Nikki Hally was Governor of South Carolina. Frank Shrontz, who was a lawyer from the University of Idaho in Moscow Idaho, would take over leadership in 1986. Mr. Shrontz is unique. He served in the President Nixon and President Ford administrations at the Department of Defense during the Vietnam War, leaving public office and returning to Boeing in 1977. Mr. Shronz would be instrumental in promoting the less fuel efficient mid range 737 over much more cumbersome long range models (757 and 767) in the Boeing production line. With Mr. Shrontz’s Boeing / Department of Defense / Return to Boeing Career path, we begin to see the amalgamation of the private sector and public sector more commonly known as the Military Industrial Complex. Mr. Shrontz also served on the board of 3M. In 1996 Philip Condit moved into the leadership role at the Boeing Company, Mr. Condit is a highly educated Engineer who earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Phd. in engineering from the Tokyo University of Science. The only westerner to graduate from the Tokyo University of Science. This begins the outsourcing of The Boeing Company. Many believe the current issues today manifest themselves during Mr. Condit’s leadership term at Boeing. During Mr. Conduit's leadership term a scandal developed. Internal investigations would find that an Air Force procurement officer would be promised a job at Boeing for some favorable treatment during her tenure as Principal Deputy Undersecretary of the Air Force for Acquisition. Mr. Condit grew Boeing’s annual revenue from $23 billion to $54 billion(with your tax dollars. Mr. Condit moved the Boeing headquarters from Seattle to Chicago. Why? Mr. Condit oversaw the acquisition of Rockwell Aerospace and Hughes Space & Communications then a merger with McDonnell Douglas. This was a major consolidation of the Air Defense industry. It is surprising no one thought this a threat to national security. This left The Boeing Company as the only company capable of building commercial aircraft in the United States. As a man of honor Mr. Condit resigned from Boeing after the procurement controversy.

From the beginning until Mr. Condit resigned, Boeing had focused on engineering a good product . Most of the leadership had deep engineering experience, and rose up from the ranks at The Boeing company. They all understood one thing, an airplane only falls out of the sky one time. On other hand, the merger with McDonnell Douglass would prove to be catastrophic. Many would say McDonnel Douglass bought out Boeing with Boeing money. After Mr. Condit’s resignation former McDonnel Douglass CEO Harry Stonecipher would assume the leadership role at The Boeing Company. Stonecipher, a degree in physics from the University of Tennessee, would institute the McDonell Douglas culture of high profits and base product development over the engineering philosophy of promoting innovative technology deep seated previously at Boeing. Mr. Stonecipher would resign after it was discovered he was having an affair with a subordinate. On March 6th 2005, CEO Harry Stonecipher resigned and left the board of directors. Harry Stonecipher will be the last of the aviation engineering types to lead The Boeing Company. W.James McNerney would be the first leader of The Boeing Company to not have a background in aviation. Mr. McNerney was a business type who graduated from the Harvard school of business. He was the CEO of 3M before joining Boeing. It was Mr. McNerney’s decision to upgrade the 737 to the 737 Max as opposed to engineering an entirely new aircraft. As we can see innovation was not the call of the day, and this decision would prove to be fatal.

The original Boeing design built in the 1960s was lower to the ground, because in the 1960’s baggage handling was handled by hand. In the modern era machines are used to move baggage and larger modern day designed aircraft are higher off the ground. Because of the increase in size and power of modern day engines, and the low ground clearance of the basic frame of the 737. This forced Boeing to move the engine forward on the wing to get them higher off the ground. This rearrangement adversely affected the basic center of gravity of the aircraft. Thus, the new aerodynamic alignment of the 737 Max would stall the aircraft in some configurations. Boeing CEO James McNerney was trying to put a square peg in a round hole. They don’t teach basic geometry in the Harvard Business School. Since the aircraft configuration was unsafe in certain situations The Boeing company used a bandage. They developed a software system termed Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). MCAS was coded to take control of the aircraft from the pilot in near stall conditions. Image Captain Sully (flt 1549) saying, I’m going to ditch in the Hudson River and the aircraft AI taking control of the plane and diverting to the airport. As history has told, the MCAS system resulted in two Boeing aircraft ( Lion Air Flt 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flt 302 ) nose diving into the ground with the pilot unable to turn it off.

After 10 years as the leader of the Boeing company in 2015 W. James McNerney would step down, and Dennis A. Meilenburg would take over as the leader of The Boeing Company. Mr. Meilenburg would acquire the previous decisions of the former leadership, and would be caught holding the bag, when Lion Air Flt 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flt 302 crashed in the later part of 2018 which was the result of faulty system redesign of an outdated airframe. He would resign shortly after in 2019. The present day leader of The Boeing company is David C Calhoun. As the leader of the Boeing Company Mr. Calhoun has failed to address the 1960s airframe design of the current 737 Max airliner. Instead Mr Calhoun has placed the blame on a lack of training relevant to the MCAD system. Mr Calhoun is an accountant and a very good one. However, he is not an aerospace engineer.