Boeing [NYSE: BA] named William Geary director of Boeing Winnipeg – the largest components supplier to Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He will report to Pat McKenna, vice president and general manager of Boeing Fabrication. Geary was Boeing’s manufacturing superintendent of Final Assembly for the Next-Generation 737 before assuming this position.
Geary was the chief engineer for 737 Program Aircraft Interiors prior to his role as superintendent. He also served as director of Production Engineering on the 737/757 and 747 programs, in addition to holding various management assignments in Engineering and Tooling within Commercial Airplanes.
A graduate of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., Geary earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, and is a graduate of the University of Washington’s Management Program. He serves on the Gonzaga University board of regents. Geary is a past president of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and is a member of the organization’s international board of directors.
Integral to the company’s global supply chain, Boeing Winnipeg is a division of Boeing Canada Operations, Ltd. — a wholly owned subsidiary of the company’s Commercial Airplanes business unit. Located in the Manitoba province of Canada, Boeing Winnipeg opened in 1971 with 50 employees. Since then, Boeing Winnipeg has led the way establishing a $1.2 billion aerospace industry cluster that thrives in the region. More than 1,400 employees now work at the Winnipeg site, which is the largest aerospace composite manufacturer in Canada and the country’s third largest aerospace facility.
As a manufacturing area of excellence, Boeing Winnipeg produces complex composite components for all Boeing 700-series commercial jets, such as engine thrust reverser blocker doors, engine strut forward and aft fairings and ducts.
Boeing Winnipeg also serves as a tier-one supplier partner on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the company’s all-new airplane which enters service in 2008. In this role, Boeing’s Winnipeg site has responsibility for design, manufacturing, integration and delivery of the Dreamliner’s wing-to-body fairing, main landing gear door, crown fairing and vertical fin fairing.
The team also supports 787 test programs evaluating composite manufacturing processes, with plans to deliver production parts to program supplier Vought, including composite shear ties for sections 47 and 48 and forward and aft pylon fairings. Production of the composite shear ties represents Boeing Winnipeg’s first primary composite structure work statement.
