Northwest workers give South a shot

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. — Late last October, Maria Laczynski got a call from her mother.

The Boeing Co. had just picked South Carolina for its second production line for its new jet, the 787.

“She wanted to know when I would be applying for a transfer,” Laczynski said.

An engineer with Boeing in the Puget Sound region, Laczynski spent part of her childhood in South Carolina, where some of her family still lives.

Laczynski said her transfer was a mutual decision with Boeing. The company could use in South Carolina Laczynski’s previous experience in Wichita, where she helped ensure the 787 composite barrels are structurally sound, and in Seattle, where she worked on fuselage barrel development.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here in South Carolina,” she said.

And the job came with a promotion to supervisor.

Laczynski is one of many Boeing workers in Washington state who have accepted positions in South Carolina. Boeing declined to give an estimate of transfers from the Puget Sound area to Charleston. However, there have been enough Boeing employees flocking across the country to establish support groups, said Steve Mueller, who works in human resources for Boeing’s final assembly line in North Charleston.

Mueller, formerly with Boeing’s global staffing group in the Puget Sound area, moved to Charleston in May. Mueller’s three adult children supported his decision.

“My biggest fear was my wife adjusting,” he said.

But through company support groups and the community, Mueller’s wife, who had never lived outside Western Washington, has acclimated even faster than Mueller expected. Mueller said he finds the pace of life slower in the South. And the people, “they care about you as an individual,” he said.

Laczynski agreed. “Everybody is so friendly here,” she said.

Both Mueller and Laczynski note the general enthusiasm, both of Boeing workers and of the community, about Boeing’s new assembly plant — only the third widebody plane plant in the world. There’s a sense of being a part of a new chapter in aviation history.

“It’s tough not to get caught up in it,” Mueller said. “There’s a lot of excitement here.”

“It’s kind of like getting in on the ground floor,” of a new venture, Laczynski said.

Laczynski said she misses her friends in Seattle but appreciates the outlook of her South Carolina workers. While Boeing employees in South Carolina are excited about learning something new, Boeing workers in Seattle “think they know how to do” things already, she said.

Although the Puget Sound region may have a long history in aerospace, “I’m surprised about how much knowledge the people here have,” Laczynski said.

When the South Carolina site was chosen, industry observers and union leaders in Washington noted the difficulty in building airplanes and the need for skilled workers like those in Puget Sound area who have decades of experience.

“I think there are people (in the Puget Sound region) who don’t think we can do it,” Mueller said.

Regardless of how Boeing employees at the two sites regard each other, Mueller sees it as part of his job to help bridge the distance between the two Boeing sites. He’s committed to staying in South Carolina.

“My wife and I love it here,” he said. “If this was the last assignment I had with Boeing, I wouldn’t be disappointed.”