U.S.: Boeing to move headquarters from Seattle

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Headline: Boeing to move headquarters from Seattle

Source: USA Today, 21 March 2001

URL: http://www.usatoday.com/money/general/2001-03-21-boeing-move.htm

SEATTLE — Aerospace giant Boeing plans to move its world headquarters out of Seattle. The company says it is considering sites in Chicago, Denver and Dallas-Fort Worth for a new "corporate center" that will house fewer than half the 1,000 headquarters employees who currently work in Seattle. "As we've grown, we have determined that our headquarters needs to be in a location central to all our operating units, customers and the financial community," Boeing Chairman Phil Condit said at a news conference in Washington, D.C. "Simply put, we intend to run Boeing as a business that has the flexibility to move capital and talent to the opportunities that maximize shareholder value," he said.

The company says it wants to put the headquarters in "a culturally diverse city that: offers ready access to global markets, provides a strong pro-business environment, and allows easy access to major Beoing operations and customers."

Boeing has nearly 200,000 employees, 78,400 in Washington state. But the headquarters staff is only a fraction of that, about 1,000 employees. Boeing hopes to chose the new corporate site by early summer and have operations functioning there by fall.

Boeing, which was founded in Seattle in 1916, also is promoting the leaders of its three operating units to chief executive officers. They are Alan Mulally at Commercial Airplanes in Seattle, Jerry Daniels at Military Aircraft and Missile Systems in St. Louis, and Jim Albaugh at Space and Communications at Seal Beach, Calif.

[Andre comment: Well this is a shocker. Beyond the apparent upcoming addition to the Layoff List (I haven't posted this there) I must wonder if this article is actually telling us that the Boeing bean-counters don't like the water/power supply issues in the PNW...maybe some of them read GICC??? ]

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@state.pa.us), March 21, 2001

Answers

Condit said the decision had been made before the recent West Coast energy crunch -- and before the Feb. 28 earthquake that rattled the Northwest.

"This is a fundamental strategic decision," he said. The goal is "what's best for the corporation."

http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi- free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0640_BC_Boeing&&news&newsflash-national

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), March 21, 2001.


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