Page 48

Frontiers May 2016 Issue

Product Development at the time, recalled that Boeing engineers were initially considering various options to stretch the 767, rather than developing an all-new airplane. In the fall of 1988, Roundhill and other commercial managers attended an executive meeting to review plans for the jetliner program to follow the 767. Shrontz was the Boeing chairman then, and during the meeting Shrontz asked why they were not considering an all-new airplane, Roundhill recalled. “That was the turning point,” Roundhill said of what became the 777, a program officially launched in 1990. As important as the 777 program was, Shrontz said his greatest satisfaction was with the 737 programs. “I had a keen interest in the 737 Photo: Frank Shrontz, far right, greeted test pilots John Cashman, foreground left, and Ken Higgins after the first flight of the new 777, on June 12, 1994. BOEING ARCHIVES 48 | BOEING FRONTIERS program from its inception until I retired,” he said. “I always thought it was a great airplane, but there was a time when people wanted to let it go. It was not as competitive at first, but the more we worked on it, the more we got it competitive. I kind of took it on as my own interest and actually ran the production division at one time. We got the program on solid footing. In hindsight, the decisions were right.” The 737 was developed in the 1960s. First flight was in April 1967. Boeing launched development of the Next-Generation 737 in the 1990s, when Shrontz was chairman and CEO. Today, Boeing employees are producing more than 40 737s a month at the Renton, Wash., factory. Rates are scheduled to go even higher. From a shaky start, with orders coming for only one or two airplanes at a time, more 737s have been delivered over the years than any other commercial jetliner. Another version, the even more fuel-efficient 737 MAX, is now in flight test. (See story, Page 12.) Shrontz welcomes the 737’s accelerated production rates. He’s amazed Boeing can roll out as many airplanes as it does in a singular facility. He said he always found great pleasure in watching an airplane come off the assembly line. Twenty years after stepping down as Boeing chairman and CEO, Shrontz lives in Seattle. He travels occasionally and serves on nonprofit company boards. He watches Boeing leaders operate from afar, and while acknowledging the competitive challenges facing the aviation world, he thinks the company is in a good place. “I have no regrets except one or two minor ones, like the short-term purchase of de Havilland of Canada,” Shrontz said of his time leading all of Boeing. “I had a good career. The company was good to me.” DANIEL.W.RALEY@BOEING.COM


Frontiers May 2016 Issue
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