Trailblazers

Frontiers February 2016 Issue

BY DAN RALEY As Boeing approaches the start of its second century in July 2016, Frontiers visits with some of the men and women who have helped make Boeing a global leader in aerospace. arlene Nelson’s passion is flying gliders. She soars through the sky and goes wherever the wind takes her. Nelson treated her Boeing career in the same fashion. For 34 years, she never knew exactly where she was going to land, but she always welcomed the journey. The South Dakota native, according to colleagues, put together a career as diverse as any in the company, one that moved in so many different directions—designing, building, selling, marketing, teaching, flying the finished product and improving the safety of Boeing airplanes. Nelson was as comfortable working on the factory floor as she was sitting at the flight controls of a 737 or in a sales meeting opposite Fred Smith, FedEx founder, president and CEO. “When I came to Boeing, I really wanted to get the big picture,” said Nelson, the first woman mechanical engineering graduate from South Dakota School of the Mines and Technology. “There is so much value in really understanding how the rest of the company operates.” As Boeing prepares to celebrate its centennial, Nelson is among the many men and women who have made milestone contributions to the company. She is a pioneer employee many times over. She is included among the company’s first female test pilots, salespeople, chief project engineers and factory managers. It’s a legacy that has left a sizable 40 | BOEING FRONTIERS Winds of change One of Boeing’s first women test pilots had a diverse career that included sales and time on the factory floor impression on former colleagues such as Corky Townsend, director of Aviation Safety with Commercial Airplanes. “She is the most unique person I’ve run into because she had so many jobs,” Townsend said. “Some people have had a couple of them; no one has had so many.” Nelson received 10 employment offers following college graduation and she chose aviation and Boeing. A design engineer beginning in 1974, she helped create a bracket that held landing-gear hoses on the 747. She was involved in a trade study that considered the use of fly-by-wire spoilers for the 767. She next spent a decade in flight training. She taught customer airline pilots the systems knowledge and procedures needed to fly Boeing jets and she wrote operation manuals. She also worked on a wind-shear initiative that made air travel safer through technology and procedures that alert pilots and help them avoid an extreme weather condition that can cause accidents. In 1986, Nelson became one of Boeing’s original women test pilots, logging 1,200 hours of 737 and 757 flight time over two years. It wasn’t a random decision. She grew up around pilots— her father owned a Piper Cub airplane and her uncle was a crop-duster. Nelson showed an interest in sales and was hired to help launch the 747-400 Freighter. She recalled returning home from one trip carrying a customer’s certified check for $1 million as part of a potential sale. She and her team made it a point to know the overnight shipping company strategists. They studied how that business was run. In the end, Nelson said, they helped foster a long-term relationship with FedEx that remains solidly in place today. “I don’t think there was anything she didn’t think she could do,” Townsend said. “She didn’t necessarily always have a desire to do something else. A lot of times she was asked to lead something new and bring something different to that role.” In the 1990s, after earning her sales credentials, Nelson was recruited to lead flight operations engineering and two years later was named director of marketing. Nelson’s services were in great demand around the company, according to Townsend. Nelson spent two years as 747 deputy chief project engineer at the Everett, Wash., factory before Ed Renouard, 747 and 767 program vice president and general manager, asked her to run the 747 assembly line. The work was extra challenging, Nelson said. Engineers moved into the factory for the first time. The production rate doubled. At first, she admittedly felt out of her comfort zone. Three years later, Renouard asked her to become 747 chief project engineer, continuing the engineering migration to the factory. Nelson said she and the others met weekly to measure progress and to identify production obstacles. “Out of all of my jobs, working in the factory, next to the production line, was the best,” Nelson said. “The buck stops there. We had to figure it out together.” Nelson’s final Boeing position was director of Aviation Safety. Her group conducted accident investigations and safety reviews of airline events to determine whether changes in airplane design or flight-crew procedures were necessary TR A I LBL A ZERS M


Frontiers February 2016 Issue
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