The Boeing Company

The Boeing Company

• Founder: William E. Boeing. 
• Distinction: Evolved with aviation industry from biplanes to Lunar Orbiters. 
• Primary products: Commercial and military aircrafts, rockets, satellites. 
• Annual sales: $57.993 billion. 
• Number of employees: 197,000. 
• Major competitors: Airbus Industries, EADS, Lockheed Martin. 
• Chairman and CEO: Philip M. Condit; president and COO: Harry C. Stonecipher. 
• Headquarters: Seattle, Wash. 
• Year founded: 1916. 
• Web site: www.boeing.com.

The Boeing Company

For as long as there has been an aviation business, the Boeing name has been part of it. Just a few years after the Wright brothers made their first flight at Kitty Hawk, William Boeing attended the first American air show in Los Angeles. He immediately saw the possibilities, and over the next several years explored various facets of the exciting new industry. He rode a biplane from atop a wing, took flying lessons from an early barnstormer, and spearheaded the design of a seaplane. But when he bought an old Seattle shipyard to open an airplane manufacturing operation in 1916, his involvement became official.
Over the next eight-and-a-half decades, his Boeing Company weathered an ebb and flow that spelled the end to most of its once-mighty competitors. It did so by snagging virtually every opportunity that surfaced—from the first U.S. mail air routes, to massive military contracts, to domination of commercial aviation, to a major role in the space program. It has long been the top producer of commercial jets, and with various acquisitions also became the largest aerospace company in the world.

While cyclical downturns over the years devastated one aircraft or aerospace firm after another, Boeing battled back effectively with imagination and diversification. For example, it began United Airlines and employed the first female flight attendant and as an early global enterprise developed customers in 145 countries. Its vast litany of innovations includes aviation icons such as the B-52 bomber and 737 passenger plane (the best-selling jetliner in aviation history), along with the Lunar Orbiter and Saturn V booster (launcher of Apollo spacecraft on their journeys to the moon).
But none of the challenges Boeing has encountered provides immunity from those it faces today. In fact, with the 21st century barely underway, a European rival unveiled a superjumbo jet that siphoned attention—and sales—from Boeing’s existing alternative. Trade magazines and Seattle-area newspapers speculated that without extraordinary effort, Boeing might soon find itself the world’s number-two plane maker. Not surprisingly, Boeing prepared once again to fight back.