Philip Murray Condit (born August 2, 1941) is an American engineer and businessman who was

Chair A chair is a type of seat, typically designed for one person and consisting of one or more legs, a flat or slightly angled seat and a back-rest. They may be made of wood, metal, or synthetic materials, and may be padded or upholstered in vario ...

and

Chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

(CEO) of the

Boeing The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...

company from 1996 to 2003. He dramatically reshaped the company by Merger with

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it produ ...

and relocating Boeing headquarters from

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. He resigned to take symbolic responsibility for a military procurement scandal, although he was not accused of any ethical breaches.

Education

He was born in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, and became an aviation enthusiast at an early age, earning his pilot's certificate at age 18. He earned a bachelor's degree in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1963, a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

aeronautical engineering Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: Aeronautics, aeronautical engineering and Astronautics, astronautical engineering. A ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1965, a Master's in Management from the

Sloan Fellows The Sloan Fellows program is the world's first mid-career and senior career master's degree in general management and leadership. It was initially supported by a grant from Alfred P. Sloan, the late CEO of General Motors, to his alma mater, MIT ...

program of the

MIT Sloan School of Management The MIT Sloan School of Management (MIT Sloan or Sloan) is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Sloan offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs, ...

in 1975, and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in engineering from the

Tokyo University of Science , formerly "Science University of Tokyo" or TUS, informally or simply is a private research university located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. History Tokyo University of Science was founded in 1881 as The Tokyo Academy of Physics by 21 graduates ...

. (He is the first Westerner to earn such a degree from that institution.)

Boeing career

Phil Condit joined the Boeing company in 1965 as an aerodynamics engineer, and worked on the since-canceled Supersonic Transport program (SST). The same year he was awarded a

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

for a flexible wing design called a " sailwing." In 1968, he became a lead engineer on the

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...

high-speed configuration. He advanced into management within a year, then became manager of the

Boeing 727 The Boeing 727 is an American narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavy 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter flight lengths from smaller airpo ...

marketing in 1973. In 1974, he entered the

program at the

, where he completed his Master's degree in Management a year later. He returned to Boeing as manager of new-program planning. He then advanced to director of program management for the

707 707 may refer to: * 707 (number), a number * 707 (band), an American rock band * AD 707, a year in the 8th century * 707 BC, a year in the 8th century BC * The 7 July 2005 London bombings, a terrorist attack * 707th Special Mission Unit, a military ...

/727/

737 737 most commonly refers to: * Boeing 737, an American narrow-body passenger airplane ** Boeing 737 Classic ** Boeing 737 MAX ** Boeing 737 Next Generation * AD 737, a year in the common era * 737 BC, a year * 737 (number), a number 737 may als ...

division in 1976, and

757 757 may refer to: * Boeing 757: a narrow-body airliner * AD 757: a year * 757 BC: a year * 757 (number): a number * Area code 757 Image:Area code 757.png, The area colored red indicates the southeast corner of Virginia served by area code 757 pol ...

chief program engineer in 1978, then director of 757 engineering in 1981. Condit later became vice president and general manager of the 757 division in 1983; vice president of the Renton division the same year, and vice president of sales and marketing for Boeing Commercial Aircraft Company (BCAC) in 1984. In 1986, he was named as executive vice president and general manager of BCAC, then executive VP and general manager of the

777 777 may refer to: * 777 (number), a number * AD 777, a year of the Julian calendar * 777 BC, a year in the 8th century BC * Boeing 777, a commercial jet airliner :* Boeing 777X, the newer generation of the Boeing 777. Art and entertainment Alb ...

program division.

Chairman and retirement

In 1992, he was elected president of Boeing and a member of the board of directors. Four years later he became CEO as well. In 1997, he was elected chairman, becoming the seventh chairman since the company was founded. He remained in this position until resigning on 1 December 2003, followed by retirement in March 2004. He resigned one week after firing Chief Financial Officer

Michael M. Sears Michael M. Sears (born July 16, 1947) is an American former Boeing executive and convicted felon. In 1992 Sears led the successful development of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. In 1997, Sears was President of the Douglas Aircraft Company division o ...

and Vice President

Darleen Druyun Darleen A. Druyun (born November 7, 1947) is a former United States Department of the Air Force civilian official, Boeing executive, and convicted felon. In 2004, Druyun pleaded guilty to a felony in relation to her role in the United States Air ...

when an internal investigation determined that the two had discussed a job for Druyun while she was still an Air Force procurement officer helping pass judgment on proposed Boeing contracts. Condit resigned to take symbolic responsibility, and Sears and Druyan served prison terms. A member of the Boeing board, Lewis E. Platt, said that Boeing initially declined Condit's offer to step down, but relented after agreeing with Condit that his departure would help give the company a fresh start with its biggest customer, the U.S. government. Many Boeing workers were unhappy Condit left, according to the ''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

''. In a 2019 article, Jerry Useem criticized Condit and Boeing for Boeing's 2001 move to Chicago, suggesting that by "isolating" the Boeing management from its engineering and manufacturing staff, the company discounted its former engineering-led corporate culture in favor of a management style run by MBAs instead of engineers.

Mergers and acquisitions

Condit utterly transformed Boeing during his seven-year tenure as CEO, making numerous space and defense acquisitions and growing annual revenue from $23 billion to $54 billion. During his tenure

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

reached rough parity with Boeing's commercial airplane division, and in some years exceeded Boeing in jetliner orders or deliveries. Boeing acquired Rockwell Aerospace and Hughes Space & Communications, then performed a merger with the McDonnell Douglas company in 1997. These acquisitions consolidated much of the nation's aerospace capacity into Boeing. After the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

there was a nearly 20% decline in North American air travel, which created severe financial problems for both Boeing and the U.S. airline industry. At the time of his retirement, Condit told a reporter that the defense acquisitions had been intended to reduce the company's reliance on commercial airplanes: "We knew that commercial airplanes was going to be a capital goods, cyclic industry. We needed breadth."

Personal life

Condit has been married four times. For his fourth (and current) marriage, he wed Geda Maso. Condit is a member of the

National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America The National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America governs the Boy Scouts of America organization. One source reports that there were 72 members of the board in 2001. The board is led by the national chair, a volunteer elected by the Nat ...

, the organization's governing body.Boy Scouts of America Annual Report 2011
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Awards

*''Kokusai Shimin Sho'' (International Citizens Award), Japan America Society, 1997. *''Chief Executive Officer of the Year'', Financial World, 1997. *''Ronald H. Brown Standards Leadership Award'', 1997. *''Peter F. Drucker Strategic Leadership Award'', 1998. *''Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award'', University of California, Berkeley, 1998. *''Distinguished Eagle Award'', Air Command and Staff College, 1999. *''International von Karman Wings Award'', The Aerospace Historical Society, 1999.

References

External links

*, on which much of this article is based.

Business Week on What Really Happened to Phil Condit {{DEFAULTSORT:Condit, Philip M. American chief executives of manufacturing companies American chairpersons of corporations Boeing people 1941 births Living people Chairmen of Boeing MIT Sloan School of Management alumni MIT Sloan Fellows National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America members Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Tokyo University of Science alumni