Boeing's Board of Directors Looks to be a Collection of Hacks

You can look up the composition of the Board here.

Does anyone know what particular aerospace expertise is brought to the table by Nikki Haley or Caroline Kennedy? Or Ronald Williams, former CEO of Aetna, and Ed Liddy, former CEO of Allstate, because insurance and aerospace are natural fits.

Almost none of the directors have experience in industries that make hard goods. There are two retired four-star Admirals (access to Ft. Fumble) and an airline guy.

Which, I respectfully submit, goes to show why Boeing can't seem to make decent shit anymore.

One of the things that Boeing did over the years was cut the size of the QA/QC staff. Oh, I'm sure some MBA said "we can trust those guys on the floor to make it right without checking them." Which is, of course, hogwash. Having strong QA/QC signals that a company cares about the quality of the work being done. Not having it signals that they don't care.

And if the bosses don't care how good of a product is turned out, only a MBA or an utter fool would think that the workers will care. (But I repeat myself.)

It's really amazing. Since Airbus is a conglomeration of national industries run by governments, one might expect that it would be a collection of chuckleheads and that a well-run (mostly) private competitor would run rings around Airbus. But that isn't what is happening, at least, not since Boeing surrendered to the diktats of the beancounters on Wall Street.

Compare Boeing to SpaceX. One company is run by beancounters. The other is run by people who are passionately committed to flying the best spacecraft and boosters that they can. Boeing/United Launch Alliance is flying two rockets whose first models are sixty years old or better. SpaceX is flying a far newer design that they've been able to make into a semi-reusable launcher.

The way that Boeing is trending, they could unintentionally revitalize the long-haul railroad passenger network.