EVERETT – A month after ousting their executive director, members of the board that heads the Boeing Co.’s engineers union remain at odds.

The latest row between the seven members of the board for the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace comes as the group prepares to launch a nationwide search for a new leader.

The executive director will represent 20,000 SPEEA members in the Puget Sound region when the aerospace union goes into contract negotiations with Boeing next year.

The recent dispute involves a column written by SPEEA’s president, Cynthia Cole. Cole said her column was censored out of the group’s monthly publication; others say Cole tried to use the column to attack board members.

Perhaps Cole sums up the situation best in a few sentences from her column, which did not run in the August edition of SPEEA’s SpotLite magazine.

“It comes down to this: Two competing and incompatible philosophies and methods exist on SPEEA’s executive board,” Cole wrote.

Those differences sprung to life July 10 when the board voted 4-3 to terminate executive director Charles Bofferding. He had served as executive director since 1991.

Cole joined two board members, Bill Hartig and Tom McCarty, in voting against the motion. The three were out-voted by board members Bob Wilkerson, Mike Dunn, Dave Baine and Jill Ritchey.

In the days since the vote, Cole has received myriad questions from SPEEA members about the July 10 meeting. SPEEA’s president said she penned her column to give an account of the board’s action and voice concern over the manner in which the board acted.

“What concerns me most is not who is SPEEA’s executive director; but rather that this motion was rushed through without discussion, with no separation agreement in place, nor any agreement about succession plans,” Cole wrote.

Cole participated in that board meeting via telephone; Bofferding was at a family reunion held after his daughter’s wedding. The July 10 meeting was not a regularly scheduled session and originally was billed as a closed session, so few people other than board members attended. SPEEA treasurer Wilkerson made a motion to open the meeting and then proposed to end Bofferding’s tenure, Cole wrote.

Wilkerson did not return Herald phone calls.

In an interview with The Herald, Cole said the four board members who voted to terminate the executive director’s contract had voiced dissatisfaction with Bofferding in the past. None indicated to Cole that he or she wanted Bofferding let go.

“I had specifically asked them that question” on at least four occasions, Cole said.

At previous meetings, the board had discussed member concerns while Bofferding was present at open meetings, allowing the executive director the opportunity to respond, Cole said.

“A decision of this magnitude shouldn’t have been a surprise,” she said.

The SPEEA president said she submitted copies of her column to both the group’s legal counsel and to Bill Dugovich, communication director. Dugovich also is now serving as interim executive director.

The SPEEA executive communications committee opted not to publish Cole’s piece, said Baine, SPEEA secretary and chair of that committee.

All members of the executive board, with the exception of Cole, serve on the communications group. Baine spoke briefly with The Herald while other board members asked Dugovich to respond to the newspaper’s inquiries.

SPEEA has a policy that prohibits publishing articles that cast members in a negative light, Baine said. Cole used her column to attack the four board members who voted to get rid of the executive director, the SPEEA secretary said.

“It was taken to the communications committee and it was rejected for publication,” Baine said.

Dugovich elaborated on SPEEA’s publication policy.

“Any kind of column that is critical of the union or an individual can be referred to the communications committee,” Dugovich said.

The committee then votes whether the column will run. It can suggest the column writer make changes to the piece if he or she wants it published, Dugovich said.

Previous communication committees have refused to print former president columns, Dugovich said. It happened as recently as 2002.

Five members of the communications committee voted not to publish Cole’s column. McCarty, the Northwest regional vice president and executive board member, abstained.

The recent conflict among SPEEA board members, and between the board and executive director, is not new. Cole concedes there has been strife on the board since new members were elected.

“We’ve always had differing opinions on our board,” she said.

And the board historically has quarreled with its executive director, according to a SpotLite article written by Dick Ferguson, a former SPEEA board member. His column, which details the history of SPEEA directors, appeared in lieu of Cole’s. Executive directors, Ferguson wrote, have come and gone.

“It has happened before, and it will happen again. In the meantime, SPEEA goes on,” he wrote.

Reporter Michelle Dunlop: 425-339-3454 or mdunlop@heraldnet.com.