James Lewis

A Treasure Found
The apartment I had moved into was cheap, mostly because the previous tenant had never moved his belongings out. The landlord told me that as long as I cleaned the place out, I could move in and the first month’s rent would be free and being a poor college student, I agreed. The place was filled with clutter and old furniture. I arrived with large garbage bags with the mission of simply dumping everything in a few bags and taking them out but as I rummaged through the leftover junk left behind, I found something that caught my eye.
It was an old issue of the Los Angeles Times, worn and yellowed, and the front page displayed a full-page photo of the Twin Towers destruction in New York. The date was September 12, 2001—the day after they fell. I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news but holding an actual newspaper in my hand gave me chills as the memory came back and the stark image of two parallel towers with black clouds billowing out from them was staring back at me from the paper in my hands.
It had been several years since the event and since then most of the news has been on The War on Terror, sending more and more soldiers to Iraq, and whatever else Bush had thought necessary. Everyone had become so angry at Bush and this war but as I looked at the article, I realized again what exactly we were fighting for and why we had gone in the first place. I was holding a real piece of American history and evidence of the largest deaths on American soil in my lifetime. Although I was shaken by the event, holding this paper in my hands felt sacred. The person who had left it had obviously wanted it—they had held on to it for so many years, only to forget it when they carelessly moved out of an old apartment. I wondered what it meant to them and if they had held on to it to be reminded or just as a fluke. I decided I would hold on to it—I wanted this relic for myself because this was a piece of my history too.

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This paper, by referring to the major political and economical issues present at Boeing, evaluates the company’s organizing function of management as it relates to human resources, knowledge, and technology.
Boeing employed the success paradigm approach while it was going through significant business volume increase in both of its main markets–commercial jet liners and military air vehicles. Boeing’s 7?7 group of jet liners grasped a huge share of the commercial airline market with well-accepted models such as the 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, and the projected 787. Boeing managed to do this despite of intense rivalry from American producers such as McDonnell Douglas and the European association Airbus Industries, which gained significant subsidies from a number of European governments (Smith 2001). Military business Boeing competed for during this time covered contracts for military air jets of all sorts (e.g. the stealth fighter, the stealth bomber, B-1B and B-2 bombers, as well as significant deals having to do with the B-52 bomber and the KC-135 tanker). Boeing also rivaled for deals in planned space station, helicopters, and pilot-less drones. As the result the company won over an cut-throat competition to manufacture the new presidential air jet – Air Force One (Smith 2001). Competitive conditions existed in these two markets that ever more demanded high technology computing answers in areas such as IT-aided design and producing of actual planes.
Currently, Boeing is considered to be one of the world’s most identifiable and valuable brand-names. In a time of growing economic disintegration, Boeing’s presence as a leading force in the U.S. industrial market helps many other players in the U.S. economy. In a time of unification of military contractors, Boeing has appeared as one of maybe three or four military-industrial market actors competent of meeting the wants of the US military across a range of product lines (Piasecki 2005).
Every day, more than three million travelers board 42,300 flights on Boeing airplanes, more than 345 satellites launched into orbit by Boeing carrying vehicles pass in the clouds and 6,000 Boeing military jets present shield with air forces of 23 independent states and every division of the U.S. armed forces (Boeing Annual Report, 2005). Boeing is the major aerospace corporation in the world and a main U.S. exporter. Boeing has placed a considerable investment in its Safety System, which covets historical loss data for the whole organization, and equips Boeing with the ability to examine the corporation’s risk portfolio and project the influence of different insurance structures on the firm’s cost of risk. Boeing’s associated litigation, alterations in federal, state and local policies with regard to worker’s health and safety and the environment is also a great advantage in the commercial air transport sector (Piasecki 2005).
During its storied history, Boeing has created a can-do reputation that borders on haughtiness. While competitor plane manufacturers have come and gone, Boeing has appeared as the nation’s 11th-largest company, its biggest exporter and a leading force in the Northwest economy with 115,000 employees in Washington state. To be fair, besides being a successful company, Boeing has experienced some serious troubles in the recent past. This company, renowned for its assurance, instead was grappling with serious uncertainty when its commercial air jet division was adversely affected by constant parts shortages and an outdated production method. There were even widespread gossips that an argument has broken out among company directors over the strategic development of the company in the future (Towards the wild blue yonder 2002).

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