> Pope, who is an obvious contender, has a background in finance. Dave Gitlin, a Boeing director who is chief executive of Carrier, which manufactures heating and cooling systems, has a background in aerospace, previously holding roles at Collins Aerospace and United Technologies.<p>> A third possible contender is Patrick Shanahan, head of Boeing’s supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which supplied the door plug that blew out during the Alaska Airlines flight in January. He previously spent three decades at the plane maker. Greg Smith, American Airlines chair and a former Boeing finance director, is seen as another potential candidate.
This is not a Boeing issue.<p>It is about the moral and economic decline of America where financialization is the norm.<p>Businesses are not measured in terms of how materially successful they are.<p>They are measured in terms of how much profit they can produce for executives and controlling shareholders so long as it is "legal", which is anything they are capable of bribing legislators and regulators to make "legal".<p>It could be outright murder or needless deaths due to depraved negligence and indifference, but so long as it is "legal" it is perfectly fine.
It would not be a surprise to see HQ move back to Washington and of the potential replacements, Shanahan started his career at BA as an engineer. [1]<p>1. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._Shanahan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_M._Shanahan</a>
I don’t see why you need an engineer to manage engineers. You need someone who can synthesize high level requirements across many domains.<p>What we need are laws and regulations that force all companies to make products that don’t harm their customers or the rest of the world. An engineer can make a product that kills people. A financeer can hire engineers that won’t kill people. You need good people doing good things either way.