Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, following a series of incidents suggesting that the company's jets remain unsafe, will soon leave the company. His predecessor, Dennis Muilenberg1, was outright fired after hundreds of passengers died in two 737 Max crashes. Calhoun was supposed to be the aluminum speed tape that held the company together until it could be fixed, but it turned out he was dollar store duct tape.
Board Chair Larry Kellner has informed the board that he does not intend to stand for re-election at the upcoming Annual Shareholder meeting. The board has elected Steve Mollenkopf to succeed Kellner as independent board chair. In this role, Mollenkopf will lead the board's process of selecting Boeing's next CEO.
In addition to these changes, Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO, will retire from the company and Stephanie Pope has been appointed to lead BCA, effective today.
"It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve Boeing," said Calhoun in a letter to employees. "The eyes of the world are on us, and I know that we will come through this moment a better company. We will remain squarely focused on completing the work we have done together to return our company to stability after the extraordinary challenges of the past five years, with safety and quality at the forefront of everything that we do."
Check out the caliber of this man, as displayed four years ago:
In a March 2020 interview with The New York Times, Calhoun discussed the 737 MAX's MCAS software, saying the Boeing had made a "fatal mistake" in expecting that pilots could immediately correct the software problems. He went on to explain that "pilots [in Ethiopia and Indonesia] don't have anywhere near the experience that they have here in the U.S." He unsuccessfully requested to go off the record after being asked whether American pilots would have been able to control the situation, and then replied, "[f]orget it, you can guess the answer."
Lets see if they can find someone who doesn't think that Young's Modulus is one of the junior executives' new wristwatch.
1. A The Onion headline might be "Muilenberg: Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Boeing CEO That Doesn't Suck Shit, Huh"
