Boeing and Unions—an Industrial Crash Landing
Boeing had an inspirational history in Seattle. Founded on July 15, 1916, by William Boeing in Seattle, Washington, it took 102 years to all but fall out of the skies. It may survive, but management has done all it could to ruin a once-proud reputation. The source of this quote depends on who you ask, but the truism is success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. No one will stand up and take the blame for this fiasco.
But all great stories have beginnings and ends
Bill Boeing was a lumberman before he took an interest in airplanes, which is the why of the company being founded in Seattle. Lumber country. But he was among the first industrialists to grow by merger and acquisition, and he was very skilled in the process, buying up competitors and airlines as well. Production and sales in one commercial basket that captured the ultimate consumer.
If there is a zenith to all this upward climb, it’s probably the fact that what goes up must eventually come down and the peak likely occ…