Boeing working to keep its talent

By Bryan Corliss

Herald Writer

Sheryl Platte sent in a resume in June, was called for an interview two weeks later and won a job at the Boeing Co. on the spot.

Then came Sept. 11.

"They handed me a layoff notice just as fast," she said.

On Thursday, Platte and three colleagues from Everett joined several hundred soon-to-be-laid-off Boeing workers at an internal company job fair in Renton, talking with recruiters from other Boeing divisions around the country.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes is laying off workers by the thousands. But the company’s other units need to hire hundreds of people for work on satellites, rockets, military avionics, air traffic management and national missile defense, said Richard Hartnett, who is in charge of Boeing hiring around Puget Sound.

On Thursday, for example, Boeing had more than 1,100 jobs to fill nationwide, Hartnett said. Along with the engineering and science jobs, there were openings for business and computer specialists. The jobs are all posted on Boeing’s internal Web site. Thursday’s event was a chance for the workers and recruiters to meet face-to-face.

It was a little odd, said Bridgette White, a Boeing recruiter from Mesa, Ariz. "It’s hard for me to do reverse recruiting. I know people don’t want to go out the door."

The skills they used building commercial jets don’t always match those needed in other divisions, Hartnett said. But still, he added, "there’s a reasonable chance many of these jobs can be filled" by former Boeing employees from Puget Sound — "if people are willing to relocate."

That’s always been a challenge, Hartnett said. "One of the hardest things is to coax people out of the Northwest."

But the people at Thursday’s job fair were certainly willing to wing it.

"(Relocation) isn’t a big thing anymore since we’re doing it every six months," Platte quipped.

Many of those at the fair were younger engineers who recently moved to the Northwest to take jobs at Boeing. Platte had come from Michigan, where she’d worked at General Motors. Jonathan Dorrough, who has been her partner on an Everett-based team working on supply chain management, had left a failing Utah software company a few months earlier.

Kwame Royal and Kevin Dukes were eager to relocate. Childhood friends from Atlanta who both went to Tuskeegee University in Alabama, they stood in line to talk with Boeing recruiters from Huntsville, Ala.

"It’d be the perfect opportunity," said Dukes, who had hired on with Boeing in July and worked on jet interior designs at Everett. The cost of living in Alabama is far less, he said. On his Boeing salary, he could afford acreage.

Boeing also needs flight test engineers in Huntsville, he noted. "I’m not working in flight testing here and I’ve always wanted to."

Royal said he’d gladly give up a plum posting on the Everett-based Sonic Cruiser design team to make the move. "I can always come back," he said. "I’m still with Boeing."

There’s been a lot of grumbling that people are fed up with Boeing and its cycle of hiring and layoffs, Hartnett said. Given that, he wasn’t sure how many would be interested in staying with the company.

"If the room was empty, that would be a bummer," he said, standing next to a long line in front of the California recruiters. "This is a real positive turnout."

James Weber, a computer analyst, said after 21 years he’s got too much invested in Boeing to just bail out. Besides, he is interested in moving back to the East Coast to be closer to his ailing father. So he waited to talk about jobs in Washington D.C.

And Dourrough said he needs to put more time in. "Six months on a resume is not a good thing," he joked.

Dourrough said he wasn’t sure whether anything would come out of Thursday’s job fair. His hunch — "It’s more of a PR thing."

But he’d like to stay with the company, he said. "I liked what I was doing. I liked my job. You can’t blame Boeing too much for what happened."

You can call Herald Writer Bryan Corliss at 425-339-3454

or send e-mail to corliss@heraldnet.com.