Dennis Muilenburg

one for the presidents. Since he became CEO in Before becoming chief executive, Muhlenberg held various roles at boeing, from president of the company's Defense, Space and Security division to director of the weapons system for the proposed Bowing Joint Strike fighter aircraft. He recently sat down with Carlisle Group co founder David Rubinstein. They spoke on David Rubinstein's Bloomberg

television program Peer to Peer Conversations. Since you've been the CEO, the market capitalization of the company is up about the stock prices up about a hundred and yet you also ride a hundred and twenty miles a week in a bicycle.

Have you thought about how much higher the stock price would be or the market cap if you didn't spend those time on the hundred and twenty miles a week in bike book riding, Well, I have thought about that, and actually I ride closer to a hundred forty a week, and with that correlation, I'm thinking I should start writing two hundred a week. Wow. Okay, all right, Well, um so does I mean riding bikes? I've done probably ten miles in my lifetime maybe something like that. But um so,

isn't it dangerous? I mean they have key Man insurance on you, your important person. I ride more than ten thousand miles a year, so I'm safety conscious and uh, you know that's a well honed skill. And you know, one of the things we take pride in our companies are is our safety record. And I try to apply the same thing when I'm riding. And it's a great way to relax and think and frankly, I think, uh, taking time to exercise and ride my bike, Uh, it makes me better as a leader, and I try to

encourage that in our team as well. When did you take this up? Uh as a young man or you're always interested in this, I've been riding for probably years. Seriously, I often travel with my bike and I can drum up some Bowing riders at almost any one of our sites, and we hand out Bowing jerseys. It's a great way to get out with the team. Any of them ever go faster than you, or they're not allowed to do that. Some try, some try they're still with the company, or yeah, yeah, yeah,

I like a challenge. M One other thing that I found unusual and reading about you is that you seem to be fueled by diet mountain dew. You drink enormous amounts. It is one of my favorite drinks. So you have some here? Um, is there something in it that I don't know about? But went to look? I mean, if I what I looked like you? If I could drink the diet mountain dew, You're sure? All right? Now? Hey, it's good. It's it's a good energizer for me. You

serve those everywhere at Boeing. Assume they have that pretty much. So let's talk about the company you're you're leading now. The company is an extraordinary success story started by Mr Bowing many many years ago. The company is how old now? We're a hundred and two years this year, so we celebrated our centennial. We did a big celebration event at the Red Barn facility, which is where the Bowing company started back in nineteen sixteen. Okay, so the company is

in very very good shape. The government is spending more money in aerospace defense and before um people are flying more than they are. So can it get a you better than this? I tell you what, this is a really strong marketplace. When I look at big industrial markets around the world, aerospace market I think it is the strongest. And one of the big drivers behind that is is the population that's now entering the middle class and has

the ability to fly. And we have a hundred million new passengers every year in Asia new passengers, and uh our estimates are that less than twenty of the world's population has even taken a single flight. So tremendous growth opportunity ahead. And then, as you said, strengthen the defense budget as well. The tax bill was passed and it's a big tax cut for a lot of corporations, and you were one of the companies that I think benefited from it. And maybe we're pushing for this tax cut.

So what are you gonna do with all the extra money that you have. So we plowed a lot of those savings back into innovation in R and D, and we spend billions of dollars every year on R and D investment here in the US. And another big thing we did is immediately upon passage of the bill, we announced an investment of three hundred million dollars in our

workforce and workplace. So that includes a hundred million in training for employees, a hundred million in infrastructure for the future workspaces, and then a hundred million in community giving, which is perhaps the most important part of that. And

UH that hundred million in community giving. Fact, today we're going to be announcing the fact that we're identifying fifty four million of specific grants and we're adding another five million dollars to our investment in the Kennedy Center announced I UH if you if you ever need tickets to Hamilton's, call me deal. So let's talk about how UH, a farm boy from Iowa became the head of Boeing. So

you grew up in Iowa. I did up in northwest Iowa, just outside of a little town called Shoe Center, and UH grew up on a farm, working on my dad's farm. What kind of farm wasn't Well, we had a large crop farm. Mostly we raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and we had a lot of live stock, cattle, pigs, chickens, and you were milking cows and everything. Every morning. I had to milk cows. We uh we uh milked our own cows for for our family's consumption. So that was part

of my daily chores in the morning. And you ever said to them drink some mountain dew and they the cows will produce, cows would be more productive or that. That wasn't part of the diet plan when I was a kid there, all right, So you went to Iowa State, I did, And Iowa State you meant, uh you majored in aeronautica space engineering. Okay, so were there a lot of people doing that there? Yeah, it's it's it was at that time one of the larger aerospace engineering schools

in the country. Continues to be. It does have some bowing connections to T. A. Wilson, who was one of one of Boeing's previous CEOs. Uh. He went to Iowa State and uh, I actually when I went there, managed somehow to get his scholarship and Uh. That led to an opportunity for a Bowing internship. So between my junior and senior years at Iowa State, I did an internship at Bowing in Seattle, and I got hooked. Okay, I've been there ever since. Well, you you've got a master's

degree at the University of Washington. Was that while you were working at Boeing. Yeah, that was part of Boeing's education. While you're working plan what was it that enabled you to rise up among all those employees to be the CEO you're implying it's hard to tell. Well, I just want to give you a chance to tell everybody that I already know well David, and you know frankly, Um, I never worried too much about that. So I was thrilled to go work at the world's best scerospace company.

I wanted to be a great designer of airplanes. I had the chance to work with a lot of great teams along the way, and I always tried to, you know, find the hardest things to work on and just concentrate on knocking that job out of the park. And that may not sound like much of a career strategy, but

it worn't worked out. Okay, So at a very young age, you were put in charge of running a program for Boeing where they were trying to get the Joint Strike UH fighter contract, which is the biggest contract the Pentagon's every even Ultimately it went to another company called Lockheed Martin. Yep, So you lost. When you lost, did you think your career was over now? And it really wasn't even my

construct around that program. But in four years we went from roughly a clean sheet of paper to flying two x thirty two prototypes and uh clearly disappointed that in the end we didn't win. But I learned a lot as a leader, and you know, sometimes when things don't work out, you learn even more. I can tell you that the technology benefit from that program, the talent benefit, how those people then subsequently spread out to the rest of billing. He created a benefit that's lasted for for decades.

Early in the administration of President Trump said that the Air Force one plane was too expensive and he wasn't happy with the cost of it. Um, he got your attention. I guess we're we're proud of the fact that we build and support Air Force one. It's a really important mission. The airplanes that are flying today. Are old seven forty seven Dash two hundred actually delivered under George H. W. Bush's administration. They're that old old at seven forty seven

is flying and we're proud to keep him flying. And so the two new uh seven forty seven Dash eights, the latest version of the seven seven where I just procured, and those will be modified and become the new air Force one over the next few years. So did you convinced him to take up mike riding when you were in marloggue? He didn't seem like that interested in that. He is. He has his own hobby set and we uh we uh we respect each other's hobbies. Alright. Airbus

is your main competitor, is that right? Yeah? And in the commercial airplane commercial air airper space. Have you ever tested out any airbuses? I've I've flown on him. Uh, you know, It's not something I spent a lot of time pursuing. Uh, but I would I would suggest if you were to, you know, survey the crowd people that have flown on both Airbus and Bowing generally the reports that are people like flying on a Bowing airplane? All right,

but that's see how many people here prefer bowing. Okay, okay, I guess I guess you're right on that they and you have had what some people might call it duopoly, which is really two manufacturers. Um, are you not worried that the Chinese or the Japanese will ultimately get into this business of making commercial airplanes. Well, we know that future competitors are coming without question. And uh, you know, the great thing is we have a very strong marketplace.

It's about a seven point six trillion dollar marketplace over the next ten years. It's a growing industrial marketplace. It's a marketplace that creates manufacturing jobs and technology ripple benefit. China is clearly emerging as a very important commercial market for us. They are also a future competitor. So the the art of this business is to collaborate and compete, and competition is going to make us better. The point that the world is pursuing the aerospace market, uh, just

causes us to continue to invest in innovation. We win because we continue to invest in innovation. We want a big contract to produce air tank These are refueling planes that enable our planes to be refueled. But it's behind schedule or not. Well, we've had some challenges in the development program, so we're behind the original schedule, but we are on the cusp now of delivery. So I'm excited

to see this happen. Explane is how it works. You're flying along on an airplane and they have another plane come along. It's gonna refuel it. How hard is it to get that little thing in there? Or combat operations or air force operations. Obviously the skill of the pilot the receiver of the fuel is important, and then the new advanced systems on the new tanker assist with that. So the refueling boom is more than fifty feet long,

it extends out of the back of the airplane. It has wings on it, so you actually fly it, and there's an operator inside the tanker that flies the boom to the airplane and makes the connection. We've done more than connections during the test program already, so that's part of certifying the tanker. Do you make the F fifteen Okay, have you ever been in that plane? Or I've had a couple of flights in the F fifteen Eagle backseat, right, so flying with a Boeing pilot, but a chance flying

the F fifteen Eagle and in our F eighteen super horriant. Uh, I flowed in a patchie helicopter a few others to us, what are the great parts of this job? Because I occasionally get to fly. So when they do a barrel roll, what is that like? Does I feel like fun? Or is that's little nerve? That's fantastic? Yeah, in a in a fighter jet, it's not really a barrel roll. It's more of a snap roll, right luster. But uh yeah, we uh, we had the chance to go up and

do a few maneuvers. The pilot that flies the CEO has had a special job or they tell the pilot be very careful, this is the CEO, and time that goes wrong, your job is over. We have great test pilots, all right, yeah, and and it's it's it's nice to go up on one of these tests because you kind of get calibrated. They get you accustomed to the airplane. Now, let's take the Boeing plane that most people are probably familiar with, the seven thirty seven or seven forty seven

so forth. On those planes, um, can they ever be flown without a pilot? Well, we we were going to continue to have a strong need for pilots in fact, pilots are in short supply worldwide for commercial airplanes. Uh. That said, we're also continuously working on these autonomous vehicle technologies. So there's a lot of automation already in today's airplanes that can assist the pilot, and that technology continues to mature rapidly, so we're building it into our future airplanes.

Have you ever thought of having the bathrooms in the planes bigger? Because I noticed they're really small. You know, if you want to change clothes or something to get ready for somebody else, it's really hard. Has that ever been a problem anybody's mentioned plane? Again, our our airline customers typically select the laboratory geometry, and we we support that. I will say, if if you'd like to get a b b J, we could tailor the laboratory for you

so more flexibility. You have people that can you can try it out for like six months and see if you like the DBJ befall you. You don't have that program for first select customer. So let's talk about the space program. NASA isn't doing everything it used to do. Um is the commercial sector? Are you now actually designing the missile, the rockets and what is the plan that you have is to take out a rocket to the

Moon again and to Mars. I think this is the most exciting time in h in our country space program in decades, and we're literally working on things now that are bigger than the Apollo program. I'm not sure it's as well known across the country, but we are in the midst of a space transformation in this country, and the commercial UH entrants here are adding energy. We're building a new CST one D star Liner, which will be the first American made capsule to get us back to

the space station. And we're building the new rocket to Mars with NASA and this new space Lodge system. It's a rocket that's about thirty eight stories tall, about nine point two million pounds of thrust. You want to put that in car urbs. It's a about two hundred seven thousand Corvette engines, and UH we're gonna do first test

launch here over the next couple of years. We're gonna do a slingshot mission to the Moon, returned to the Moon, set up a lunar gateway, and then we're gonna go to Mars, and the first person to step foot on Mars is going to get there on a bowing rocket. Really well, they come back on a bowing rocket, all right. Um, and and in uh, in Boeing's version of the space business, it's always a two way trip, okay, but it takes six months to get the Mars more or less right,

six months on that order. Okay, Remember there was a plane called the Concorde. Why do we not have a supersonic transport any Long's it's the economic hurdle that goes with it. That airplane was never economically viable on its own, and UH, to fly supersonic you burn two to three times as much fuel. I do envision a day where not only will we see commercial airplanes that look like today's airplanes, but we'll see high speed airplanes that connect any two cities in the world in about two hours.

And then we'll see that span up to UH space tourism, and eventually we'll see an economically viable space ecosystem in lower thorbit and UH you'll see an intersection between commercial air travel, high speed travel, and space travel. And that's all going to evolve over the next couple of decades. You had a very nice name called Dreamliner. I mean, if somebody thought that up it was. It sounds great. Um,

but how come you to name your other planes? Like the seven forty seven doesn't have a nice name like that or seven thirty seven. How come you don't have a name for all of them? Well, maybe that's something we'll look at. Well, can I get a fee for coming up with that idea or something? Yeah, we could consider that, all right, could be you know again, if you want to get into the b BJ market, that could be some consideration. Well, I'm thinking about it. I

just need a six month trial. When you're talking to members of Congress for people in the administration, um are what is the biggest concern that you have educating them about what you actually do? Right now, trade policy is really important item for US, and as we think about effective trade agreements around the world, and certainly we want to level playing field around the world. We want to be able to compete and win. We have about of our manufacturing here in the US, but we sell about

seventy of our products outside the US. So think about trade surplus. The aerospace sector creates the biggest trade surplus of any sector in the country, and so we need trade agreements that allow us to compete globally to sell globally, and that's part of what creates us manufacturing jobs. So that's an area of discussion, active discussion right now. What

about the tariffs. We don't see the current tariffs as having a material effect on our business, but it is something we're watching because it's the broader question of of trade relationships and effective trade agreements around the world. So we've seen a lot of leaders up front, business leaders, government leaders. What do you think makes a great leader? Well, you know, I get to ask that question. I thought

that was original. I thought nobody else that's a good question. Well, you know, when I when I look at all the dimensions of being a leader, frankly, it goes back to a lot of what I learned growing up on that farm in Iowa. I learned a lot from my parents and the value of hard work, integrity, how you treat other people, how we respect others, are willingness to bring

diverse ideas to the table. Those all sounds simple, and you know, things I learned from my dad, who was never a businessman, but they apply in the business world. And I think sticking to those fundamentals and always reminding yourself the importance of integrity, your reputation, how you treat others, and then having an element of being able to inspire,

you know, those that work around you. And uh, we we try to codify those at Boeing and what we call our enduring values and our Bowing behaviors, but they get back to those fundamentals of who you are as a person and how you treat others. How did your parents lived to see your success? They did. My my father passed away a couple of years ago, but he lived a long, robust life, and my mom is still around. And I'm never quite sure they knew exactly what I

did when I started at bowing. Uh. Of course, coming from the farm, I started bowing my as an engineer, and my dad would often ask me, say, so, Dennis, how did it go today? What did you do? And uh? I described it, and you know he would kind of get it, and uh, you know, his designing airplanes, it was real stuff. And then as I got to more elevated positions, got two executive positions, he asked me the

same questions and Dennis, what did you do today? And I describe it, and you know, I was excited about it. He would pause and say well, Dennis, what did you actually do today. It's a good reminder, right, does your mother ever called you to say well, She's