Speaker 1: With roughly one thousand employees across sixty six countries. Bowing
Speaker 1: airplanes and aerospace products represent one of the most visible
Speaker 1: and important US exports to the globe, and as CEO
Speaker 1: of the roughly ninety three billion dollar company, Dennis Muhlenberg
Speaker 1: is in charge of securing the Planemaker's future in both
Speaker 1: the commercial and military sectors, overseeing the rollout of A seven,
Speaker 1: eight seven and the Max ten, and securing a nearly
Speaker 1: four billion dollar contract to build a new air force
Speaker 1: one for the presidents. Since he became CEO in Before
Speaker 1: becoming chief executive, Muhlenberg held various roles at boeing, from
Speaker 1: president of the company's Defense, Space and Security division to
Speaker 1: director of the weapons system for the proposed Bowing Joint
Speaker 1: Strike fighter aircraft. He recently sat down with Carlisle Group
Speaker 1: co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubinstein's Bloomberg
Speaker 1: television program Peer to Peer Conversations. Since you've been the CEO,
Speaker 1: the market capitalization of the company is up about the
Speaker 1: stock prices up about a hundred and yet you also
Speaker 1: ride a hundred and twenty miles a week in a bicycle.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about how much higher the stock price
Speaker 1: would be or the market cap if you didn't spend
Speaker 1: those time on the hundred and twenty miles a week
Speaker 1: in bike book riding, Well, I have thought about that,
Speaker 1: and actually I ride closer to a hundred forty a week,
Speaker 1: and with that correlation, I'm thinking I should start writing
Speaker 1: two hundred a week. Wow. Okay, all right, Well, um
Speaker 1: so does I mean riding bikes? I've done probably ten
Speaker 1: miles in my lifetime maybe something like that. But um so,
Speaker 1: isn't it dangerous? I mean they have key Man insurance
Speaker 1: on you, your important person. I ride more than ten
Speaker 1: thousand miles a year, so I'm safety conscious and uh,
Speaker 1: you know that's a well honed skill. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things we take pride in our companies
Speaker 1: are is our safety record. And I try to apply
Speaker 1: the same thing when I'm riding. And it's a great
Speaker 1: way to relax and think and frankly, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: taking time to exercise and ride my bike, Uh, it
Speaker 1: makes me better as a leader, and I try to
Speaker 1: encourage that in our team as well. When did you
Speaker 1: take this up? Uh as a young man or you're
Speaker 1: always interested in this, I've been riding for probably years. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I often travel with my bike and I can drum
Speaker 1: up some Bowing riders at almost any one of our sites,
Speaker 1: and we hand out Bowing jerseys. It's a great way
Speaker 1: to get out with the team. Any of them ever
Speaker 1: go faster than you, or they're not allowed to do that.
Speaker 1: Some try, some try they're still with the company, or yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like a challenge. M One other thing that I
Speaker 1: found unusual and reading about you is that you seem
Speaker 1: to be fueled by diet mountain dew. You drink enormous amounts.
Speaker 1: It is one of my favorite drinks. So you have
Speaker 1: some here? Um, is there something in it that I
Speaker 1: don't know about? But went to look? I mean, if
Speaker 1: I what I looked like you? If I could drink
Speaker 1: the diet mountain dew, You're sure? All right? Now? Hey,
Speaker 1: it's good. It's it's a good energizer for me. You
Speaker 1: serve those everywhere at Boeing. Assume they have that pretty much.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the company you're you're leading now.
Speaker 1: The company is an extraordinary success story started by Mr
Speaker 1: Bowing many many years ago. The company is how old now?
Speaker 1: We're a hundred and two years this year, so we
Speaker 1: celebrated our centennial. We did a big celebration event at
Speaker 1: the Red Barn facility, which is where the Bowing company
Speaker 1: started back in nineteen sixteen. Okay, so the company is
Speaker 1: in very very good shape. The government is spending more
Speaker 1: money in aerospace defense and before um people are flying
Speaker 1: more than they are. So can it get a you
Speaker 1: better than this? I tell you what, this is a
Speaker 1: really strong marketplace. When I look at big industrial markets
Speaker 1: around the world, aerospace market I think it is the strongest.
Speaker 1: And one of the big drivers behind that is is
Speaker 1: the population that's now entering the middle class and has
Speaker 1: the ability to fly. And we have a hundred million
Speaker 1: new passengers every year in Asia new passengers, and uh
Speaker 1: our estimates are that less than twenty of the world's
Speaker 1: population has even taken a single flight. So tremendous growth
Speaker 1: opportunity ahead. And then, as you said, strengthen the defense
Speaker 1: budget as well. The tax bill was passed and it's
Speaker 1: a big tax cut for a lot of corporations, and
Speaker 1: you were one of the companies that I think benefited
Speaker 1: from it. And maybe we're pushing for this tax cut.
Speaker 1: So what are you gonna do with all the extra
Speaker 1: money that you have. So we plowed a lot of
Speaker 1: those savings back into innovation in R and D, and
Speaker 1: we spend billions of dollars every year on R and
Speaker 1: D investment here in the US. And another big thing
Speaker 1: we did is immediately upon passage of the bill, we
Speaker 1: announced an investment of three hundred million dollars in our
Speaker 1: workforce and workplace. So that includes a hundred million in
Speaker 1: training for employees, a hundred million in infrastructure for the
Speaker 1: future workspaces, and then a hundred million in community giving,
Speaker 1: which is perhaps the most important part of that. And
Speaker 1: UH that hundred million in community giving. Fact, today we're
Speaker 1: going to be announcing the fact that we're identifying fifty
Speaker 1: four million of specific grants and we're adding another five
Speaker 1: million dollars to our investment in the Kennedy Center announced
Speaker 1: I UH if you if you ever need tickets to Hamilton's,
Speaker 1: call me deal. So let's talk about how UH, a
Speaker 1: farm boy from Iowa became the head of Boeing. So
Speaker 1: you grew up in Iowa. I did up in northwest Iowa,
Speaker 1: just outside of a little town called Shoe Center, and
Speaker 1: UH grew up on a farm, working on my dad's farm.
Speaker 1: What kind of farm wasn't Well, we had a large
Speaker 1: crop farm. Mostly we raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and we
Speaker 1: had a lot of live stock, cattle, pigs, chickens, and
Speaker 1: you were milking cows and everything. Every morning. I had
Speaker 1: to milk cows. We uh we uh milked our own
Speaker 1: cows for for our family's consumption. So that was part
Speaker 1: of my daily chores in the morning. And you ever
Speaker 1: said to them drink some mountain dew and they the
Speaker 1: cows will produce, cows would be more productive or that.
Speaker 1: That wasn't part of the diet plan when I was
Speaker 1: a kid there, all right, So you went to Iowa State,
Speaker 1: I did, And Iowa State you meant, uh you majored
Speaker 1: in aeronautica space engineering. Okay, so were there a lot
Speaker 1: of people doing that there? Yeah, it's it's it was
Speaker 1: at that time one of the larger aerospace engineering schools
Speaker 1: in the country. Continues to be. It does have some
Speaker 1: bowing connections to T. A. Wilson, who was one of
Speaker 1: one of Boeing's previous CEOs. Uh. He went to Iowa
Speaker 1: State and uh, I actually when I went there, managed
Speaker 1: somehow to get his scholarship and Uh. That led to
Speaker 1: an opportunity for a Bowing internship. So between my junior
Speaker 1: and senior years at Iowa State, I did an internship
Speaker 1: at Bowing in Seattle, and I got hooked. Okay, I've
Speaker 1: been there ever since. Well, you you've got a master's
Speaker 1: degree at the University of Washington. Was that while you
Speaker 1: were working at Boeing. Yeah, that was part of Boeing's education.
Speaker 1: While you're working plan what was it that enabled you
Speaker 1: to rise up among all those employees to be the
Speaker 1: CEO you're implying it's hard to tell. Well, I just
Speaker 1: want to give you a chance to tell everybody that
Speaker 1: I already know well David, and you know frankly, Um,
Speaker 1: I never worried too much about that. So I was
Speaker 1: thrilled to go work at the world's best scerospace company.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a great designer of airplanes. I
Speaker 1: had the chance to work with a lot of great
Speaker 1: teams along the way, and I always tried to, you know,
Speaker 1: find the hardest things to work on and just concentrate
Speaker 1: on knocking that job out of the park. And that
Speaker 1: may not sound like much of a career strategy, but
Speaker 1: it worn't worked out. Okay, So at a very young age,
Speaker 1: you were put in charge of running a program for
Speaker 1: Boeing where they were trying to get the Joint Strike
Speaker 1: UH fighter contract, which is the biggest contract the Pentagon's
Speaker 1: every even Ultimately it went to another company called Lockheed Martin. Yep,
Speaker 1: So you lost. When you lost, did you think your
Speaker 1: career was over now? And it really wasn't even my
Speaker 1: construct around that program. But in four years we went
Speaker 1: from roughly a clean sheet of paper to flying two
Speaker 1: x thirty two prototypes and uh clearly disappointed that in
Speaker 1: the end we didn't win. But I learned a lot
Speaker 1: as a leader, and you know, sometimes when things don't
Speaker 1: work out, you learn even more. I can tell you
Speaker 1: that the technology benefit from that program, the talent benefit,
Speaker 1: how those people then subsequently spread out to the rest
Speaker 1: of billing. He created a benefit that's lasted for for decades.
Speaker 1: Early in the administration of President Trump said that the
Speaker 1: Air Force one plane was too expensive and he wasn't
Speaker 1: happy with the cost of it. Um, he got your attention.
Speaker 1: I guess we're we're proud of the fact that we
Speaker 1: build and support Air Force one. It's a really important mission.
Speaker 1: The airplanes that are flying today. Are old seven forty
Speaker 1: seven Dash two hundred actually delivered under George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush's administration. They're that old old at seven forty seven
Speaker 1: is flying and we're proud to keep him flying. And
Speaker 1: so the two new uh seven forty seven Dash eights,
Speaker 1: the latest version of the seven seven where I just procured,
Speaker 1: and those will be modified and become the new air
Speaker 1: Force one over the next few years. So did you
Speaker 1: convinced him to take up mike riding when you were
Speaker 1: in marloggue? He didn't seem like that interested in that.
Speaker 1: He is. He has his own hobby set and we
Speaker 1: uh we uh we respect each other's hobbies. Alright. Airbus
Speaker 1: is your main competitor, is that right? Yeah? And in
Speaker 1: the commercial airplane commercial air airper space. Have you ever
Speaker 1: tested out any airbuses? I've I've flown on him. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, It's not something I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time pursuing. Uh, but I would I would suggest if
Speaker 1: you were to, you know, survey the crowd people that
Speaker 1: have flown on both Airbus and Bowing generally the reports
Speaker 1: that are people like flying on a Bowing airplane? All right,
Speaker 1: but that's see how many people here prefer bowing. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I guess you're right on that they and
Speaker 1: you have had what some people might call it duopoly,
Speaker 1: which is really two manufacturers. Um, are you not worried
Speaker 1: that the Chinese or the Japanese will ultimately get into
Speaker 1: this business of making commercial airplanes. Well, we know that
Speaker 1: future competitors are coming without question. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the great thing is we have a very strong marketplace.
Speaker 1: It's about a seven point six trillion dollar marketplace over
Speaker 1: the next ten years. It's a growing industrial marketplace. It's
Speaker 1: a marketplace that creates manufacturing jobs and technology ripple benefit.
Speaker 1: China is clearly emerging as a very important commercial market
Speaker 1: for us. They are also a future competitor. So the
Speaker 1: the art of this business is to collaborate and compete,
Speaker 1: and competition is going to make us better. The point
Speaker 1: that the world is pursuing the aerospace market, uh, just
Speaker 1: causes us to continue to invest in innovation. We win
Speaker 1: because we continue to invest in innovation. We want a
Speaker 1: big contract to produce air tank These are refueling planes
Speaker 1: that enable our planes to be refueled. But it's behind
Speaker 1: schedule or not. Well, we've had some challenges in the
Speaker 1: development program, so we're behind the original schedule, but we
Speaker 1: are on the cusp now of delivery. So I'm excited
Speaker 1: to see this happen. Explane is how it works. You're
Speaker 1: flying along on an airplane and they have another plane
Speaker 1: come along. It's gonna refuel it. How hard is it
Speaker 1: to get that little thing in there? Or combat operations
Speaker 1: or air force operations. Obviously the skill of the pilot
Speaker 1: the receiver of the fuel is important, and then the
Speaker 1: new advanced systems on the new tanker assist with that.
Speaker 1: So the refueling boom is more than fifty feet long,
Speaker 1: it extends out of the back of the airplane. It
Speaker 1: has wings on it, so you actually fly it, and
Speaker 1: there's an operator inside the tanker that flies the boom
Speaker 1: to the airplane and makes the connection. We've done more
Speaker 1: than connections during the test program already, so that's part
Speaker 1: of certifying the tanker. Do you make the F fifteen Okay,
Speaker 1: have you ever been in that plane? Or I've had
Speaker 1: a couple of flights in the F fifteen Eagle backseat, right,
Speaker 1: so flying with a Boeing pilot, but a chance flying
Speaker 1: the F fifteen Eagle and in our F eighteen super horriant. Uh,
Speaker 1: I flowed in a patchie helicopter a few others to us,
Speaker 1: what are the great parts of this job? Because I
Speaker 1: occasionally get to fly. So when they do a barrel roll,
Speaker 1: what is that like? Does I feel like fun? Or
Speaker 1: is that's little nerve? That's fantastic? Yeah, in a in
Speaker 1: a fighter jet, it's not really a barrel roll. It's
Speaker 1: more of a snap roll, right luster. But uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we uh, we had the chance to go up and
Speaker 1: do a few maneuvers. The pilot that flies the CEO
Speaker 1: has had a special job or they tell the pilot
Speaker 1: be very careful, this is the CEO, and time that
Speaker 1: goes wrong, your job is over. We have great test pilots,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, and and it's it's it's nice to
Speaker 1: go up on one of these tests because you kind
Speaker 1: of get calibrated. They get you accustomed to the airplane. Now,
Speaker 1: let's take the Boeing plane that most people are probably
Speaker 1: familiar with, the seven thirty seven or seven forty seven
Speaker 1: so forth. On those planes, um, can they ever be
Speaker 1: flown without a pilot? Well, we we were going to
Speaker 1: continue to have a strong need for pilots in fact,
Speaker 1: pilots are in short supply worldwide for commercial airplanes. Uh.
Speaker 1: That said, we're also continuously working on these autonomous vehicle technologies.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of automation already in today's airplanes
Speaker 1: that can assist the pilot, and that technology continues to
Speaker 1: mature rapidly, so we're building it into our future airplanes.
Speaker 1: Have you ever thought of having the bathrooms in the
Speaker 1: planes bigger? Because I noticed they're really small. You know,
Speaker 1: if you want to change clothes or something to get
Speaker 1: ready for somebody else, it's really hard. Has that ever
Speaker 1: been a problem anybody's mentioned plane? Again, our our airline
Speaker 1: customers typically select the laboratory geometry, and we we support that.
Speaker 1: I will say, if if you'd like to get a
Speaker 1: b b J, we could tailor the laboratory for you
Speaker 1: so more flexibility. You have people that can you can
Speaker 1: try it out for like six months and see if
Speaker 1: you like the DBJ befall you. You don't have that
Speaker 1: program for first select customer. So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: space program. NASA isn't doing everything it used to do.
Speaker 1: Um is the commercial sector? Are you now actually designing
Speaker 1: the missile, the rockets and what is the plan that
Speaker 1: you have is to take out a rocket to the
Speaker 1: Moon again and to Mars. I think this is the
Speaker 1: most exciting time in h in our country space program
Speaker 1: in decades, and we're literally working on things now that
Speaker 1: are bigger than the Apollo program. I'm not sure it's
Speaker 1: as well known across the country, but we are in
Speaker 1: the midst of a space transformation in this country, and
Speaker 1: the commercial UH entrants here are adding energy. We're building
Speaker 1: a new CST one D star Liner, which will be
Speaker 1: the first American made capsule to get us back to
Speaker 1: the space station. And we're building the new rocket to
Speaker 1: Mars with NASA and this new space Lodge system. It's
Speaker 1: a rocket that's about thirty eight stories tall, about nine
Speaker 1: point two million pounds of thrust. You want to put
Speaker 1: that in car urbs. It's a about two hundred seven
Speaker 1: thousand Corvette engines, and UH we're gonna do first test
Speaker 1: launch here over the next couple of years. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do a slingshot mission to the Moon, returned to the Moon,
Speaker 1: set up a lunar gateway, and then we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to Mars, and the first person to step foot on
Speaker 1: Mars is going to get there on a bowing rocket.
Speaker 1: Really well, they come back on a bowing rocket, all right. Um,
Speaker 1: and and in uh, in Boeing's version of the space business,
Speaker 1: it's always a two way trip, okay, but it takes
Speaker 1: six months to get the Mars more or less right,
Speaker 1: six months on that order. Okay, Remember there was a
Speaker 1: plane called the Concorde. Why do we not have a
Speaker 1: supersonic transport any Long's it's the economic hurdle that goes
Speaker 1: with it. That airplane was never economically viable on its own,
Speaker 1: and UH, to fly supersonic you burn two to three
Speaker 1: times as much fuel. I do envision a day where
Speaker 1: not only will we see commercial airplanes that look like
Speaker 1: today's airplanes, but we'll see high speed airplanes that connect
Speaker 1: any two cities in the world in about two hours.
Speaker 1: And then we'll see that span up to UH space tourism,
Speaker 1: and eventually we'll see an economically viable space ecosystem in
Speaker 1: lower thorbit and UH you'll see an intersection between commercial
Speaker 1: air travel, high speed travel, and space travel. And that's
Speaker 1: all going to evolve over the next couple of decades.
Speaker 1: You had a very nice name called Dreamliner. I mean,
Speaker 1: if somebody thought that up it was. It sounds great. Um,
Speaker 1: but how come you to name your other planes? Like
Speaker 1: the seven forty seven doesn't have a nice name like
Speaker 1: that or seven thirty seven. How come you don't have
Speaker 1: a name for all of them? Well, maybe that's something
Speaker 1: we'll look at. Well, can I get a fee for
Speaker 1: coming up with that idea or something? Yeah, we could
Speaker 1: consider that, all right, could be you know again, if
Speaker 1: you want to get into the b BJ market, that
Speaker 1: could be some consideration. Well, I'm thinking about it. I
Speaker 1: just need a six month trial. When you're talking to
Speaker 1: members of Congress for people in the administration, um are
Speaker 1: what is the biggest concern that you have educating them
Speaker 1: about what you actually do? Right now, trade policy is
Speaker 1: really important item for US, and as we think about
Speaker 1: effective trade agreements around the world, and certainly we want
Speaker 1: to level playing field around the world. We want to
Speaker 1: be able to compete and win. We have about of
Speaker 1: our manufacturing here in the US, but we sell about
Speaker 1: seventy of our products outside the US. So think about
Speaker 1: trade surplus. The aerospace sector creates the biggest trade surplus
Speaker 1: of any sector in the country, and so we need
Speaker 1: trade agreements that allow us to compete globally to sell globally,
Speaker 1: and that's part of what creates us manufacturing jobs. So
Speaker 1: that's an area of discussion, active discussion right now. What
Speaker 1: about the tariffs. We don't see the current tariffs as
Speaker 1: having a material effect on our business, but it is
Speaker 1: something we're watching because it's the broader question of of
Speaker 1: trade relationships and effective trade agreements around the world. So
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of leaders up front, business leaders,
Speaker 1: government leaders. What do you think makes a great leader? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I get to ask that question. I thought
Speaker 1: that was original. I thought nobody else that's a good question. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, when I when I look at all the
Speaker 1: dimensions of being a leader, frankly, it goes back to
Speaker 1: a lot of what I learned growing up on that
Speaker 1: farm in Iowa. I learned a lot from my parents
Speaker 1: and the value of hard work, integrity, how you treat
Speaker 1: other people, how we respect others, are willingness to bring
Speaker 1: diverse ideas to the table. Those all sounds simple, and
Speaker 1: you know, things I learned from my dad, who was
Speaker 1: never a businessman, but they apply in the business world.
Speaker 1: And I think sticking to those fundamentals and always reminding
Speaker 1: yourself the importance of integrity, your reputation, how you treat others,
Speaker 1: and then having an element of being able to inspire,
Speaker 1: you know, those that work around you. And uh, we
Speaker 1: we try to codify those at Boeing and what we
Speaker 1: call our enduring values and our Bowing behaviors, but they
Speaker 1: get back to those fundamentals of who you are as
Speaker 1: a person and how you treat others. How did your
Speaker 1: parents lived to see your success? They did. My my
Speaker 1: father passed away a couple of years ago, but he
Speaker 1: lived a long, robust life, and my mom is still around.
Speaker 1: And I'm never quite sure they knew exactly what I
Speaker 1: did when I started at bowing. Uh. Of course, coming
Speaker 1: from the farm, I started bowing my as an engineer,
Speaker 1: and my dad would often ask me, say, so, Dennis,
Speaker 1: how did it go today? What did you do? And uh?
Speaker 1: I described it, and you know he would kind of
Speaker 1: get it, and uh, you know, his designing airplanes, it
Speaker 1: was real stuff. And then as I got to more
Speaker 1: elevated positions, got two executive positions, he asked me the
Speaker 1: same questions and Dennis, what did you do today? And
Speaker 1: I describe it, and you know, I was excited about it.
Speaker 1: He would pause and say well, Dennis, what did you
Speaker 1: actually do today. It's a good reminder, right, does your
Speaker 1: mother ever called you to say well, She's