The head of Boeing’s space and defense business is leaving the company after years of losses from fixed-price contracts and a high-profile debacle with its space capsule that left two astronauts in space...
Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new president and CEO, said on Friday that Ted Colbert, the head of the corporation’s troubled space and defense unit, will leave the company effective immediately.
As Caden Pearson reports via The Epoch Times, the move marks the first major leadership change under Ortberg, who took over in August.
“I want to thank Ted for his 15 years of service at The Boeing Company, supporting our customers, our people, and our communities,” Ortberg wrote in a memo to employees.
Steve Parker, the unit’s chief operating officer, will assume Colbert’s responsibilities until a permanent replacement is named.
Boeing’s space business has suffered repeated setbacks, including NASA’s recent decision to send the Starliner capsule back to Earth without astronauts after years of issues.
Colbert’s exit also comes as Boeing grapples with a broader financial crunch.
The company announced furloughs for thousands of white-collar workers, while more than 32,000 workers remain on strike.
“At this critical juncture, our priority is to restore the trust of our customers and meet the high standards they expect of us to enable their critical missions around the world,” Ortberg wrote.
“Working together we can and will improve our performance and ensure we deliver on our commitments.”
The company’s troubles extend to its commercial division, with a new Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 experiencing a mid-air emergency in January due to missing bolts. Boeing also faces ongoing scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which has restricted the company from increasing production of the 737 Max until it makes substantial safety and quality improvements.
In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay $243.6 million in penalties after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. The U.S. government alleged that Boeing knowingly misrepresented information to the FAA about key software on the 737 Max, the same plane involved in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Ortberg, in a separate email to employees on Friday, emphasized the need for Boeing to regain its leadership in managing defense programs.
“Historically, Boeing held a superior reputation for our ability to manage programs, and we need to ensure it remains a key differentiator for us in the future,” Ortberg wrote.
He said he had learned more about future investments for the company to be more competitive in the future, as well as near-term challenges engineers face with first-time quality and execution.
Parker, who joined Boeing’s industrial leadership team two years ago, was tapped to help overhaul Boeing’s defense programs and improve production efficiency.
He had previously led Boeing’s bomber and fighter programs as well as its defense plants in St. Louis.
Colbert joined Boeing in 2009 after working at Citigroup and Ford Motor. He served as Boeing’s chief information officer and lead its global-services business before running the defense unit from April 2022 after the previous leader was ousted.
As The FT reports, Boeing’s defence business reported losses in 2022, 2023 and the second quarter of 2024.
The division has laboured under fixed-price contracts for several large programs, which represent just 15 per cent of revenues but have racked up nearly $14bn in charges over the past decade.
Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu estimated the fixed-price programs could consume $2.6bn in cash this year, and $1.8bn in 2025.
The programs include the KC-46 refuelling tanker, the T-7A Air Force training aircraft and the MQ-25 refuelling drone, as well as the US president’s Air Force One jet and the CST-100 Starliner spacecraft that was built to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.
Boeing suffered a black eye last month when Nasa decided to forgo bringing astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore back to Earth on Boeing’s spacecraft.
Due to technical problems, the agency now plans to bring the pair home in February on a SpaceX spacecraft.
Of course, given the color of Colbert's skin, we assume there will be an imminent tirade from leftists that (structural) racism played a role in his dismissal (as opposed to his role running the group that literally lost billions of dollars for shareholders)... Or, perhaps we should ask the families of the stranded astronauts how they feel about his 'work'?
