Boeing’S Top Spokane Executive Reassigned

Phil Kelly, the man who guided the construction, start-up and operation of The Boeing Co.’s Spokane manufacturing facility, will leave the Spokane plant in November to take over another Boeing manufacturing operation in the Puget Sound area.

Kelly will be replaced as general manager of Boeing Spokane by Pete George. George is currently enrolled in an executive management program at Harvard University. Prior to that, he held positions at the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group headquarters.

“I’ve really enjoyed it here,” Kelly said Thursday. “The community has received Boeing well as a company. It’s provided good people that we could employ. And individually, I never felt like an outsider in Spokane.”

After decades of focusing its in-state manufacturing operations exclusively in the Puget Sound area, Boeing announced in late 1988 that it would build a plant in Spokane.

Under Kelly’s supervision, construction began on the $23 million, 238,000-square-foot facility in 1989. The plant began operations in 1990. It manufactures heating and cooling ducts and floor panels for all Boeing commercial jets, and employs about 500.

Kelly’s new assignment will be director of Boeing’s sheet metal center in Auburn.

“Phil’s knowledge of manufacturing and shop floor control system, along with his success in planning, constructing and bringing the Boeing Spokane plant on line, make him ideally suited to manage a center such as the sheet metal facility,” said Neil Standal, vice president and general manager of the fabrication division of the Boeing Commercial Airplane Group.

Kelly said he looks forward to the new assignment, and described it as a good career step. But he said he’s sorry to be leaving Spokane.

“I feel like a part of Spokane,” Kelly said. “I’ve learned a lot here, and I also hope I’ve contributed to the community.”