Hear, hear!

This is the answer. Leadership doesn't need an engineering background, they need a manufacturing background. Boeing needs to be a company whose mission is to build airplanes for profit. Not a company whose mission is solely to generate profit.

Jack Welch and his cult are the worst thing that ever happened to the USA.

yeah no. That is a nice to have attribute, like it or not that have to be able to run a successful business first and foremost combined with the engineering background to understand when shit is being fed up the line to them.

No, you don't want someone who *romanticizes* aviation. You want a hard-nosed realist who can think critically and has got his priorities straight.

In a crisis of trust, what you need is a leader with *character*. You need someone who understands the responsibility of building a product that people trust, but which can kill them. You need someone who can speak with discretion while at the same time being scrupulously honest about things people have a right to know.

Above all, you need a realist who is going focus on things that make an actual difference rather than just managing perceptions and evading blame. Saying the right thing has never been Boeing's management's problem, they always said exactly what needed to be said. They just never did what needed to be done.

I think the need for a leader with outstanding character is why people would like to see an engineer in charge. People trust engineers, otherwise they'd never get in a car or a plane. But we're not all ideal engineers, are we? Look at the CEO of OceanGate; he was an aeronautical engineer, but you sure as hell wouldn't want someone like him in charge of Boeing. A lack of enthusiasm for his vehicle wasn't what caused it to implode; it was a lack of sober and critical thinking.

Iâ(TM)ve been reading this site since 2000 or so. This is the best comment I have ever read. Bravo.

You misunderstand the board, executive, and institutional shareholder objectives. All of which are short to mid term financial objectives, and not always even gain. Tax laws are byzantine, and favor the very wealthy. For example, if you sell a stock with 12 months of purchase, you donâ(TM)t report earnings. Big losses can create even bigger gains in other ways. You can offload immense debt on one company, you can outsource the gains, all kinds of fun tricks. And these tricks are what mbaâ(TM)s kno

In the American military system, at least, I believe most generals will have started off not as grunts but as officers, most of which likely would not have seen frontline combat and most of which would have never held a gun as part of the actual daily activities.

> Right now, Boeing's problem is QA/QC.

Right now, Boeing's problem is cultural. The MBA's and CFO's and accountants run the show, and they have created a "we're the shakers and movers - get the gadammed plan out the door NOW! The Max is a textbook case of non-engineers in total control, with contempt for engineers running the show, and don't you engineers forget it.

Yo are correct about the schedule be damned part being needed.

It isn't a digital thing where an engineer can't figure out QC or manage. The can, and they have i the past. But th

> Right now, Boeing's problem is QA/QC. What they need is a CEO with *SOME* engineering experience but who has a specialty focus and whose primary experience is with ISO/TC184/SC4 and maintaining quality standards, and production speed be damned.....

The problems cut across the board. In aerospace engineering and manufacturing, institutional knowledge is key. The reason airplanes don't crash isn't because of better engineering analysis. It's because we get smarter over time, and ideally if you have younger engineers sitting next to guys and gals who designed the last few generations of aircraft. Same goes for manufacturing and quality control. Ideally the guys running the factory worked on the previous generations, and you know what needs to be done, an