WASHINGTON – Ford Motor Co. workers spent yesterday adjusting to the idea of an outsider running the company, but people who know new CEO Alan Mulally say they have little doubt about his future.
Ford workers who heard their new CEO address them described an energetic and humorous boss, one who answered a question about strategy with a reference to a Dilbert cartoon. Mulally is an accomplished engineer, former semi-pro tennis player and doodler who often signs his name with a little airplane symbol. His personality won many fans in his nearly four decades in Seattle.
Mulally's former colleagues spoke highly of his character.
“Alan's a guy with high integrity,” said Lyle Eveland, who worked with Mulally at Boeing for 11 years before retiring in 2001 as director of operations for Boeing's commercial airplanes.
“When you're working with him, you never lose sight of the goal. He insists on having a plan and following it. And if the plan doesn't work, you get together and change it.”
Mulally knows what to expect when a tradition-bound company passes over homegrown talent to hire an outsider as a chief executive. When Boeing's chief executive stepped down because of scandal last year, Mulally was considered a favorite to replace him. One Seattle newspaper ran an editorial endorsing him.
Instead, Boeing's board appointed one of its own members, 3M Chairman James McNerney, the first outsider to run Boeing in its history. McNerney had led a turnaround at General Electric Co.'s jet engine division and improved 3M's finances by shaving $1 billion in costs and 5,000 workers.
Bob Toomey, an analyst with E.K. Riley Advisors in Seattle who follows Boeing, said he believes Boeing's board chose an outsider “to create the sense that someone was able to come in and clean house and get the ship righted.”
Mulally admitted some disappointment at being passed over but quickly set to work selling his new boss to his employees. Over the past year, Mulally led the commercial aircraft division to record sales.
