Word: allene
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Rough Ride. The rough ride for Bill Allen started as soon as he stepped into the presidency in 1945. A University of Montana graduate and Harvard-trained lawyer, Allen began handling Boeing's legal affairs 20 years ago. Though he is no production man or engineer, he learned the plane business so well that he was made a director, was put into the top spot at the death of Philip G. Johnson. The day of his election., the Government canceled all Boeing's war contracts for B-29s Boeing had to lay off 25,000 men. The next...
Instead of trying his hand at other products, as many other planemakers did. he took a gamble and stuck to planes. He built 50 Stratocruiser airliners, sold them -and lost $13.5 million. But Allen cashed in in a more important way. With the Stratocruisers, he held together his top-notch engineering staff under Wellwood E. Beall, the engineering genius who directed the design of World War II's B-17 and B29, and later the building of the B-52. His staff set to work designing the B-47 medium bomber, landed $17.7 million in contracts...
Into the Black. Still, Boeing's troubles were not over. In 1948 its 15,000 machinists went on strike for the union shop and rigid seniority provisions. Bill Allen, who feared that the demands would eliminate the flexibility he thought management needed, sued the union for breach of contract-and won. After 144 long days the men returned, minus the union shop and the seniority clause they had demanded...
...Last year, with a backlog of more than $1 billion in orders, it netted $7.1 million. In the first six months this year alone it earned almost as much as in all of 1951. But the profit is down to 2% of gross (v. 7% for U.S. Steel). Bill Allen thinks that is too low; he says the Government should allow planemakers a bigger profit margin, to enable them to buy their own plants, keep them from being dominated completely by the Government...
Into the Supersonic. Bill Allen is unhappy about the arms program: he thinks that it should be stepped up at the expense of civilian industry, which he says is now competing for men & materials needed by planemakers. For this reason-and because of the vast complexity of the new planes-Allen does not think the Air Force will reach its goal of 143 groups by 1955, as planned...