In Focus - In Focus

Frontiers December 2014–January 2015 Issue

In Focus The people of Boeing by bob ferguson I get so much more out of photographing the people of Boeing than just pictures. My first week at Boeing, as a new photographer, someone asked me if I wanted to fly in a helicopter. I showed up and realized I was flying with Pete Conrad and Buzz Aldrin (U.S. astronauts who walked on the moon). Wow. How cool is that. Often our employees don’t realize that what they do is so amazing. I was photographing a crane operator in Everett, Wash., who has been doing this for more than 30 years, and I said to him, “Look at that view!” A huge new 747 was beneath our feet in final assembly. That’s something nobody gets on the public factory tour. “Yeah,” he said after a moment to think about it, “I guess that is pretty cool.” But it’s the norm. It’s who we are, what we do. We started this project for Frontiers because when you ask our people to talk about what they do, how long they have done it, their pride is immediate. They forget about everything else. These are real people with car payments and kids in college and mortgages. For more than 29 years here I’ve been photographing everyone from our CEOs to that crane operator, from an office worker to someone whose office is in the sky. My camera has been my front-row ticket to what we get to do here at Boeing. Just after 9/11, a military commander came to talk to our Apache team in Mesa, Ariz. He gave everybody in the room goose bumps when he said, “You don’t need to be in the knife fight to be making a difference. What you are building here, and the quality of your work, is making a big difference to our men and women in uniform.” People beamed with pride. That’s how important our employees are, and the work they do. When I meet the people of Boeing I photograph, who do the work, I realize the value of what they do. I try to photograph them in a very honest way about how I feel about them, and how I want others to feel about them. And that’s an easy job to do when you are photographing Boeing employees because the minute you start talking with them about what they do, it becomes clear how they feel. Their faces light up. Nothing else matters. They come to work every day helping make the best products in the world. We hear so much about the Boeing brand. Our people are part of that brand, a big part. It’s extremely rewarding when I take their picture and they talk to me about what they do and I see how proud they are. It inspires me. n robert.w.ferguson@boeing.com Pho to: Jame s Walla ce | boe ing Dbceeemr 2014–Janaru y 2015 67


Frontiers December 2014–January 2015 Issue
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