Embattled Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) has reorganized its top engineering team in the wake of a global crisis of confidence in the brand generated by two horrific crashes of its new Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners over the past six months.
Leaked internal Boeing memos obtained by media reveal the extent of the purge in the tops ranks of BCA, the aircraft making subsidiary of The Boeing Company. Lynne Hopper has been named BCA Vice President of Engineering.
Hopper will lead to BCA Engineering and represent it on the company's enterprise engineering leadership team. She previously worked as Vice President Chief Engineer of Boeing test and evaluation.
She will ensure BCA Engineering has the right skills, digital tools and processes to achieve our 2025 goal to be a global industrial champion. Hopper brings a wealth of experience and expertise critical to driving engineering excellence throughout the organization to Boeing's airplane business. Hopper has been with Boeing since 2004.
Hopper replaces John Hamilton, who became Vice President of Engineering in April 2016. In his new post as BCA Chief Engineer, Hamilton will now concentrate solely on his new role. He will also focus his full attention into the accident investigations.
BCA President and CEO Kevin McAllister said Hamilton's "deep experience with airplane design, regulatory standards and requirements, and engineering functional excellence make him the right person to lead our efforts."
Boeing's Chief Technology Officer and Lead Engineer Greg Hyslop in an email to employees said these assignments "show how we're prioritizing our engineering resources for the ongoing accident investigations while maintaining our momentum on our other work,"
"I strongly agree with Kevin, and that's why I believe this is the right move for Boeing and for John."
The memo said that as the Commercial Airplanes Engineering leader, Hamilton was accountable for identifying and implementing best practices, as well as ensuring the right engineering skill sets, processes and tools were in place for designing, integrating, building, testing, certifying, delivering and supporting Boeing airplane products.
He previously served as the vice president/chief project engineer for the 737 programs. He was responsible for the safety and product integrity of the airplane's design, including the integration of engineering design, product strategy, improvements and compliance to Boeing and regulatory standards and requirements.
Other changes: Frank Rasor will lead Boeing test and evaluation on an interim basis. Rasor is vice president of lab test operations and a 39-year Boeing veteran.
Naveed Hussain, vice president, and general manager of Boeing research and technology will add the role of engineering test and technology chief engineer to his duties.
