Bonnie Soodik has a leadership role at Boeing. But "in the end, the true strength of The Boeing Company is in our employees," said Soodik, senior vice president, Office of Internal Governance. "Responsibility for ethics and good business conduct and compliance rests with each of us personally." Soodik heads an organization that's responsible for ensuring the company operates with the highest standards of business conduct and compliance-and that offers resources to help Boeing people abide by these standards.

In the past few months, the office, established in November 2003, has focused on improving Boeing's ethics program.

Soodik noted that Boeing has more ethics advisors today than in the past and that the Ethics Line has expanded call-in hours. The updated Ethics site on the Boeing Web (http://ethics.whq.boeing.com internal Boeing link) includes the company's Code of Conduct, the newly published business conduct guidelines and other important ethics information. It also lets employees report concerns anonymously. Soodik encouraged employees to use all of these valuable resources to learn, ask, question, call and write.

For better oversight of key practices, the OIG includes not only Ethics and Business Conduct but also Auditing and Compliance.

The Corporate Audit group measures, evaluates and recommends changes in financial and managerial controls. "This group protects assets, prevents fraud and improves operational efficiency across the company," Soodik said. Corporate Audit continues to report out regularly to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors.

The Compliance organization, meanwhile, manages companywide import and export activities and other compliance risk areas that previously were spread across the company. It also heads the company risk-management compliance-assessment process and provides better control for international service contractors activity. Soodik advised that Boeing people contact the Compliance organization if they're in doubt about an export or import transaction.

"The Office of Internal Governance is here to help and to partner with the businesses. I encourage everyone to seek assistance-especially when in doubt."

-Maureen Herward