Where in Everett is Matt Lauer?

Published 9:00 pm Monday, April 30, 2007

EVERETT – The man pedaling a yellow and white bicycle along the 777 assembly line Monday could have been just another Boeing Co. employee making his way through the enormous Everett factory.

Except that lighting crews and television cameras don’t swarm around the average worker in Everett the way they mobbed NBC’s Matt Lauer early Monday morning.

The co-host of “The Today Show” could have chosen any place in any country in the world to kickoff his eighth weeklong edition of “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” Dangling clues for viewers, Lauer dashes off from site to site around the globe, reporting from a different location each day.

“This is a fabulous location for day one of our ‘Where in the World is Matt Lauer?’ ” he said in the early hours on Monday while standing in front of a 777 engine.

Reporting live at Boeing’s widebody aircraft factory, Lauer took viewers inside the largest building by volume in the world, giving them the bird’s-eye view of a 777’s wing, interior, tail and flight deck. Parceled out over about 12 segments throughout the two-hour “Today Show” broadcast, Lauer looked at the making of a 777, delved into the planemaker’s history and glanced ahead at the company’s new 787 Dreamliner jet.

NBC representatives approached Boeing officials in January about shooting Monday’s show at the factory. Boeing’s Everett spokeswoman Debbie Heathers said there was never a doubt whether Boeing would agree to do the show.

“From the beginning, it was always like, ‘This is the right thing to do,’” Heathers said.

Sitting on a bicycle similar to the one Lauer rode inside the factory, Boeing’s Lisa Elias watched as the TV host climbed into a crane 90 feet in the air. Elias works in nondestructive testing but has been up in the ceiling crane, which moves large, heavy plane parts around the factory.

As the crane carrying Lauer slid a 30,100-pound center section of a 777 to the middle of the bay, Elias said, “I wouldn’t want to be up there. I don’t miss it.”

But Elias, and fellow Boeing employee Lisa Maher, didn’t want to miss the airing of “The Today Show,” which began an hour after the two were scheduled to finish the third shift.

“It’s usually pretty dead around here,” Maher said.

With the time difference between coasts, “The Today Show” started shooting at 4 a.m. inside the Everett plant. More and more Boeing workers trickled down to the 777 line as the show continued filming.

As Lauer chatted inside a 777 about new technology that can make an airplane ride smoother, a crowd of Boeing employees gathered near the plane. Someone held up a cardboard sign that read “Hi Mom.” Another person called out, “777 rules.”

Scott Drexler, a 777 electrician, served as an event volunteer, keeping employees out of the film crew’s way. For Drexler, Lauer’s selection of the Boeing factory made perfect sense.

“This is the only place in the world these things are built,” he said. “It will reveal to people just how incredible this whole thing is.”

Lauer found it striking just how quickly airplanes come together. “The Today Show” crew tracked the building of a 777 for Air Canada over the course of 12 weeks, speeding up the process in a clip featured on Monday’s show.

The enormity of the factory, along with the number of its employees – nearly 25,000 – impressed Lauer’s co-host, Meredith Vieira in New York. She described the factory as a city. Lauer agreed.

“They’re all quietly doing their jobs,” he said in an interview. “I expected more chaos.”

Through the years, travel for the “Where in the World” series has taken Lauer to scenic and historic spots, including Athens, Greece; Rio De Janeiro, Brazil; Moscow; and Innsbruck, Austria. But every now and then, Lauer likes to go to a “how do they do that” spot – and an airplane factory is one of those types of places.

“It’s been an awesome ride,” Lauer told viewers of his time in Everett.

For more on Matt Lauer’s visit to Everett, check out reporter Michelle Dunlop’s aerospace blog at heraldnet.com.