[DEI woke = going broke...] Dave Calhoun was hired to fix Boeing. Instead, 'it's become an embarrassment'

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/14/business/boeing-ceo-dave-calhoun/index.html

Hardly a day has gone by in 2024 without a bad headline for Boeing, from 
life-threatening mid-flight crises up above to entrenched business 
debacles happening on the ground. So how does CEO Dave Calhoun still have 
a job?

“It’s become an extreme embarrassment,” Richard Aboulafia, a longtime 
aviation analyst, told me. “The board seems weirdly absentee, investors 
seem weirdly complacent, and the government doesn’t seem to have a 
mechanism for dealing with this.”

Let’s step back: Boeing’s (BA) stock has shed more than a quarter of its 
value this year, and it’s only March. One of its planes suffered a mid-
flight blowout on January 5, prompting multiple federal investigations 
that increasingly suggest Boeing workers failed to put crucial bolts in 
place after making repairs. Last week, investigators called the company 
out for dragging its heels in response to their requests for key evidence.

Boeing said it is working closely with regulators’ investigations and has 
plans in place to improve safety measures at its production facilities.

“We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and 
proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this 
accident,” Boeing said in a statement.

Boeing’s 737 Max problems would be egregious enough on their own.

But wait, there’s more.

On Monday, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flying from Australia to New Zealand 
plunged suddenly mid-flight, injuring 50 passengers before landing safely. 
On Tuesday, news began emerging that a Boeing whistleblower, John Barnett, 
died in an apparent suicide on the same day he was scheduled to give 
testimony about safety concerns he raised over the company’s safety 
protocols.

It’s not clear whether Boeing bears any responsibility in either case. The 
company said it was gathering information about what went wrong on the 
787. And in response to its former employee’s death, the company said: “We 
are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his 
family and friends.”

Boeing lost its way
If Boeing were any other company, its CEO would be out the door. But Dave 
Calhoun, Boeing’s chief executive since 2020, remains in his job, as does 
the entire C-suite at the time of this writing.

“It’s been three years of ‘there’s no way Calhoun can stay at the helm,’” 
said Aboulafia, managing director of the consulting firm AeroDynamic 
Advisory. “But he seems to be staying at the helm … I do not get it.”

Boeing actually raised Calhoun’s total compensation in 2022, to $22.5 
million, despite problems with the 777 program and quality control issues 
with the 787 that forced regulators to halt the company’s deliveries. 
Calhoun’s 2023 compensation has not yet been announced — Boeing typically 
reveals that information in April.

To be fair to Calhoun, he took over a company in deep distress following 
two fatal 737 Max crashes that landed the crucial plane in a nearly two-
year-long grounding and put the company in a yearslong crisis. And the 
plane maker’s problems didn’t start there: The 1997 merger with McDonnell 
Douglas is widely cited as Boeing’s poisoned chalice. It was after the 
merger that the bean-counter executives began taking over, gutting the 
joint, and putting accountants into roles once held by engineers. 
Maximizing profit took precedence over quality. In the short term, margins 
improved. But in the long term, Boeing lost the plot.

Executives at Boeing, starting in the mid-aughts, “identified an industry 
with tons of cash flow, high barriers to entry and only two players,” 
Aboulafia said, referring to Boeing’s European rival, Airbus. “It’s a 
recipe for getting away with bad things.”

Critics of the 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 weren’t just a problem of 
flawed design but also deeply flawed management that eroded Boeing’s 
corporate culture.

Boeing hired Calhoun to right the ship and help return the plane maker to 
its engineering roots. Some questioned the move at the time, given that 
Calhoun himself was trained as an accountant and has no engineering 
background. Calhoun, who previously worked at the Blackstone Group, 
Nielsen and GE, was cut from the same cloth as Jim McNerney, who ran 
Boeing as CEO from 2005-2015, a tumultuous era marked by strained labor 
relations and cost-cutting.

Under Calhoun, Boeing still hasn’t been able to shake its enormous 
problems. This year’s mounting concerns prove his efforts haven’t resulted 
in sufficient quality and safety improvements.

CNN has reached out to Boeing for comment.

“If you ask me, the first thing that needs to happen for Boeing to gain 
trust is to basically fire the entire C suite,” Gad Allon, a professor at 
the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, told me 
Tuesday. “I know that will not happen, but … there is not a single person 
that has a C in front of their title that is not responsible for what 
we’re seeing now.”

But Allon isn’t holding his breath for Boeing’s board of directors to act.

“If there is a functioning board, that’s what should happen.”


-- 
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that 
stupid people won't be offended.

Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem.  It has none.

No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.  
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.

Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden 
fiasco, President Trump.  

Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the 
The World According To Garp.  Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood 
queer liberal democrat donors.

President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed 
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.