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. woman knocked on the front door of Insitu, builder of unmanned aircraft systems in Bingen, Wash., and insisted on speaking with the head of the company. She said she wasn’t leaving until this happened. Steve Sliwa, then chief executive officer, met with her in his office. The woman proceeded to tell him how her son grew up nearby and currently served in the U.S. Marine Corps. Two nights earlier, she explained, her son and his unit were ambushed during an overseas mission. Her reason for the unannounced visit: Insitu’s ScanEagle had provided an escape route and saved everyone’s lives. The mother shared how the Marines called the unmanned aircraft their “guardian angel.” Her son was a heroic figure to the others because he and Insitu practically shared the same address. Most of all, she told Sliwa, her son was safe. “I’m here and I need to start hugging people—and I’m going to start with you,” Sliwa recalled the woman telling him. “My son’s coming home and it’s because of you.” Sliwa had joined Insitu in 2001, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, at the urging of Tad McGeer, the company founder and friend who sought his business acumen. Insitu, which today is a Boeing subsidiary, had been started in the late 1990s. The first employees, who loved to windsurf in the nearby 36 | BOEING FRONTIERS Eagle eye Steve Sliwa led Insitu to become a pioneer in unmanned aircraft Columbia River Gorge, designed and built a small unmanned aircraft with a high-quality video camera that could be launched and retrieved from a fishing boat to track tuna. It was called SeaScan. When Sliwa joined Insitu as the president, he was convinced video camera-equipped unmanned aircraft would become a necessary military resource, particularly for surveillance. Sliwa said he saw widespread potential for military and civilian customers, domestically and internationally. The mother who sought out Sliwa and offered her story was heartfelt confirmation that Insitu—Latin for “in place”—was headed in the right direction, Sliwa said. “It doesn’t get any bigger than that, to know our unmanned airplane is saving lives,” he said. “That felt really awesome.” As Boeing prepares to celebrate its centennial, Sliwa is among the many men and women who have made milestone contributions to Boeing or its heritage companies. His direction and enthusiasm largely have been responsible for establishing Insitu as a leader in unmanned aircraft system (UAS) development and production, according to Steve Nordlund, vice president of strategy for Boeing Defense, Space & Security and a former Insitu executive. “Steve’s involvement is such that you can’t have a sentence about Insitu without his name in it,” Nordlund said. “He was the lifeblood of the company. It was not uncommon on Christmas day to see his car out front.” For a decade, Sliwa presided over Insitu. He had been the fifth employee; there are more than 800 now. He recruited people from different disciplines, such as automotive and optics experts, enabling a company initially geared to assist the fishing industry to move in other directions; he helped raise five rounds of venture capital at a challenging financial time—when he left, the company had compiled $800 million in sales, with revenues doubling each year; he was involved in bringing Insitu and Boeing together as partners in 2008. The company’s biggest break came in 2004, when the Marines agreed to use the newly developed ScanEagle, a small but sophisticated unmanned aircraft system, on a trial basis during the battle of Fallujah in Iraq. Weighing only 40 pounds (18 kilograms) but with a 10-foot (3-meter) wingspan, ScanEagle was quiet and could TR A I LBL A ZERS A
Frontiers March 2016 Issue
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