A Slight Change in Plans 1959 - 1963                                                                                                               

   I reported into the Pilotless Aircraft Division (PAD).  Imagine, all that flying and I'm now in a Pilotless organization!  PAD's major program was the BOMARC area defense anti-aircraft missile. BOMARC was to be deployed along the US/CANADA border to intercept Russian bombers coming over the North Pole. The DEW line (Distant Early Warning radars) would spot them and Bomarc's would shoot them down.  One of the first things that struck me was, it was a Ramjet powered missile, a concept used by the Dornberger team in Germany. (see Famous People 1)  Only this time it was to defend not attack. 

   During the Xmas holidays I was invited to a party with many old Bell friends who had joined Boeing.  One was Tex Johnston, Chief of Flight Test at Boeing, a position he had also held at Bell.  He was surprised to see me, and that I was in PAD. He suggested a transfer could be arranged to Flight Test. I declined. My cockpit flying days were really over, a decision I never regretted.   

    A few weeks later, at a meeting with the VP of PAD, I was told that Boeing was to undergo a major re-organization in its non-commercial airplane activities.  Three divisions, including PAD, were to be merged into a new Aerospace Division over the next few months. He asked me to head up the new marketing organization. Thus ended my return to Engineering.       

   ASD's main programs were the: Minuteman ICBM, BOMARC and Dyna-Soar, which Boeing had won instead of Bell. Dyna-Soar was one of the main reasons why I decided to leave Bell. AF higher-ups had told me, that Bell's design was what they wanted but they didn't trust Bell's building capability.  It was "strongly suggested" that if Bell and Boeing could get together on a Bell design, Boeing build, the AF would be very happy!  Mr. Bell had passed away and when I informed the new President of this he said absolutely not!  Boeing got the contract but Dyna-Soar would never be built.  One of the most unpleasant tasks I ever had was informing our management, just before Christmas in 1963, that Dyna-Soar was going to be cancelled.  Everybody wanted to shoot the messenger.  A lot of them didn't believe it.  A week later it was cancelled, a very Un-merry Christmas for a lot of people. The real message however was that NASA and not the military was going to run the space program. 

    MM would turn out to be a very major program, not only for the country, but also for Boeing; BOMARC would be reduced in numbers primarily because the newest threat was from ICBM's rather than bombers.   

   Boeing was going after all the major military programs at that time: TFX fighter, SRAM missile, the C5A jumbo USAF cargo plane, and AWACS.  At the same time the 747 Jumbo was in design and a Supersonic Transport (SST) prototype was being built. If anyone believes that the best design wins, they need only look at what happened during this period.  Boeing's designs on the TFX and C5A were rated greatly superior to the other proposals, but they lost both to companies with factories in depressed labor areas and strong Congressional delegations, 

   On TFX six manufacturers submitted proposals. This was narrowed to two; Boeing and General Dynamics. In spite of the fact that the technical evaluations favored Boeing Defense Secretary Robert McNamara picked GD. 

   The unkindest cut of all was losing the C5A, a concept conceived by Boeing. After submitting mountains of paperwork three finalists were selected: Boeing, Lockheed and Douglas.  Douglas was eliminated fairly early but the Boeing - Lockheed evaluation lasted through a number of additional reviews.  The problem? The Air Force wanted the Boeing plane but Lockheed's price was lower, about $200 million.  Mr. McNamara selected Lockheed.   What the Air Force got was a technically inferior airplane AND a $2 billion program overrun.

   Boeing's submittal was based in a large part on the Boeing 747, which was in the preliminary design phase.  McNamara's idea was to get a military transport that the airlines would buy, and then, in times of a national emergency, the military could press them into service.  The concept was even dumber than the decision.  I know for a fact, that Mr. Allen was so incensed by this decision, that it probably had a lot to do with committing the future of Boeing to the building the 747.  One day at lunch, with just the two of us present, he said to me; "Bill, the airlines will never buy a C5A if I have anything to say about it."  His opinion of McNamara is not printable.  Not a single C5A was ever sold to any airline!  The 747 saw to that. There were many Boeing proposals that Boeing deserved to lose, the B-1 for example, but the C5A was definitely not one of them.

   I was not directly involved in marketing any of those programs but was very aware of what was going on because there is only ONE Boeing Company, and in Aerospace, only TWO customers DOD and NASA. Everything that was going on influenced everything else, in terms of people, money, wins, losses, etc.

   ASD needed new business.  As Marketing Manager it was my responsibility to organize the sales group to help get it. We eventually had customer liaison reps (the term salesman isn't popular in the military aerospace business) in 14 locations in the US and in London. Paris, Rome, and Tokyo. I was now getting more flight time in the back of airplanes than I would ever have gotten in the cockpit in Flight Test.

   We were going after SRAM missile, the Lunar Orbiter, and one of the biggest opportunities of them all, the Saturn S-1C Apollo main booster stage. Boeing was the only major Aerospace Company that was not part of the Saturn program and Dr. von Braun wanted us on the team.  My info was, that we could win the S-1C but not unless we also bid the S-4B stage even though we wouldn't win it. The second toughest "sales job" I ever had at Boeing was to convince my immediate management to expend money and manpower to bid something we wouldn't win. Chrysler got the S-4B.  The toughest "sales job" was convincing the same people that we could win the S-1C after losing the S-4B, which we won, in 1961.  By 1962, 55,000 employees were working on Saturn.  We also won SRAM and Lunar Orbiter.  New business was no longer a priority,

 1963 - 1966 A Mixed Bag

    In July 1963, I got the opportunity to return to engineering as the Development Program Manager on the Orbital Space Station Study (OSSS) proposal. In spite of what I thought was a superior technical design (naturally). North American won the contract.  Today Boeing is a major contractor on the Space Station that is being assembled in space as an International program.

   After the proposal was submitted, in 1964, I was selected to attend the Stanford Executive Development Program at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. The program brought 69 executives from 57 companies - 14 countries - and 19 states together to be stimulated with a barrage of ideas, concepts, techniques and theories.  Someone calculated that the 20 books we had to read contained 5 1/2 million words.  That was when I started to need glasses. There were 83 cases to research, analyze, discuss and hypothesize solutions.  Someone calculated that we averaged 5 1/2 hours of sleep per night, gained 9.7 pounds and played 7500 holes of golf at Stanford and Pebble Beach. It was an experience that left a lasting impression on me.

   I continued as a Project Engineer in ASD until October 1965 when MISD, Missile and Information System Division, was formed. I became Customer Requirements Manager.

   In February 1966, I was asked to take on a job that I didn't really want but was critical to the Minuteman program, our big money maker in MISD. There was a problem with the security control system at the launch sites.  It was so critical that Congress was threatening to shut down the system if the Air Force didn't get it fixed.  

   By September the problem was under control and I requested an assignment to an area of ASD that I had become fascinated by, hydrofoils and hovercraft. I became System Development Manager of AMS (Advanced Marine Systems).  It was a move that would shape the rest of my time at Boeing.  

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MARINE VEHICLES OR OTHER ASPECTS OF MY YEARS AT BOEING SELECT FROM THE SITES IN THE LEFT MARGIN AT THE TOP OF THIS PAGE.  YOU MIGHT FIND IT VERY INTERESTING!