Condit Will Step Up As Shrontz Retires

Boeing Co. said Chief Executive Phil Condit will add the title of chairman on Feb. 1, succeeding Frank Shrontz, who is retiring.

The 30-year Boeing veteran became president in 1992, and chief executive earlier this year. Shrontz, 65, will remain on the board of the world’s largest commercial airplane maker.

Condit, 55, an engineer by training, has worked in sales and marketing positions as well at Boeing. Before becoming president, he led the commercial airplane group, and was responsible for getting the company’s new 777 airplane from the drawing board into production.

Boeing has received orders for 73 of the 777s this year.

Shrontz is retiring during a boom time. Through Nov. 30, Boeing has received orders for 621 planes, valued at roughly $46 billion, almost twice what it received in 1995 and significantly more than the 120 it got in 1994.

It’s the most orders for the company since it began building passenger planes in 1955.

To deal with such demand, the company has hired more than 15,000 people this year, bringing its total workforce to about 120,000.

Shrontz is credited with starting the streamlining of Boeing’s production process for passenger airplanes, which allowed the company to withstand weak demand for airplanes during the early 1990s.

“He guided them through a very rough downturn in the demand for commercial aircraft,” Paul Nisbet of JSA Research said.

Analysts said Condit has fully implemented Shrontz’s reforms and is pushing the company to expand its military business. That’s most evident in Boeing’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Rockwell International’s aerospace and defense operations.