spacetoday.net: Boeing CEO resigns

Posted: Mon, Dec 1, 2003, 8:18 PM ET (0118 GMT)
Boeing

Boeing chairman and chief executive officer Phil Condit unexpectedly resigned early Monday as part of an effort by the company to put a number of ethical scandals behind it. Condit, head of Boeing since 1996, said at a press conference Monday morning that he resigned of his own volition, and was not pushed out by the company's board of directors. The company has been embroiled in a number of scandals in recent months, including the misappropriation of sensitive Lockheed Martin documents involving its EELV bid in the mid-1990s. That investigation led to the loss of several existing Boeing EELV launch contracts to Lockheed as well as a ban on future contracts that has yet to be lifted. Last week Boeing fired its CFO, Mike Sears, alleging that he made overtures to hire a Pentagon manager while she was still overseeing Boeing contracts; that manager, Darleen Druyun, who became missile defense programs manager at Boeing, was also fired. Condit will be replaced as president and CEO by Harry Stonecipher, former CEO of McDonnell Douglas who helped engineer that company's merger with Boeing in 1997. Lewis Platt, former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, will become Boeing's non-executive chairman.