Frank Shrontz, Boeing CEO During Era of Innovation, Dies at 92

(Bloomberg) — Frank Shrontz, who spent a decade leading US aviation giant Boeing Co. through upswings and downturns amid fierce competition, has died. He was 92.

He died on May 3, according to the Seattle Mariners, the Major League Baseball team in which he had been an ownership partner.

Shrontz, an attorney by training, was Boeing’s chief executive officer from 1986 to 1996. It was an era of innovation, from designing ground-breaking new jets such as the Boeing 777 to elevating quality standards after he studied processes pioneered by Japanese automakers such as Toyota Motor Corp. Boeing needed all that to compete against its European rival Airbus SE.

While Shrontz had no engineering background, he fostered leaders including engineers Philip Condit, his successor as Boeing’s CEO, and Alan Mulally, who turned around the company’s commercial airplane division in the late 1990s before leading Ford Motor Co.

On Shrontz’s watch, Boeing reinvented long-range travel with the twin-engine 777, the company’s bestselling widebody plane, and redesigned the iconic 747 jumbo jet for a new generation of airlines. An upgrade of the single-aisle 737 also brought sales success.

Shrontz presided over one of the largest expansions in Boeing’s history as sales rose to $35 billion in 1995 from $16 billion a decade earlier.

Slashed Payroll

A worldwide slowdown in aircraft orders following the 1991 Persian Gulf war hit Boeing, forcing Shrontz to lead a companywide overhaul that included shedding almost 40,000 jobs. By 1995, the largest airplane maker, then based in Seattle, had about 105,000 employees.

“Trying to change this company without a crisis wasn’t easy,” he said, according to a 1995 Fortune magazine story. “We had 75 years of history, and we were very successful. There was a strong feeling of ’why change?’”

Shrontz guided Boeing’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Rockwell International Corp.’s aerospace and defense divisions in 1996. He also helped create the 1997 merger with the No. 1 maker of military planes, McDonnell Douglas Corp. The $16.3 billion deal was completed after he retired as chairman.

Boeing, now based in northern Virginia, is the one of the largest US exporters.

Also on his watch, Boeing in 1993 was named lead contractor on the International Space Station program, the largest international space project ever undertaken.

By the time he stepped down as CEO in 1996, Boeing had lowered production costs, increased capacity and improved production processes that helped create its new showcase product: the 777 wide body.

‘Decisive’ Executive

Shrontz was “engaging but decisive,” Carolyn Corvi, a former Boeing executive, said in a 2017 interview. He regularly sought the opinions of employees, including engineers and machinists on the factory floor. Shrontz asked tough business and technical questions that helped shape aircraft developed on his watch, such as the 737 Next Generation.

He was “a really good leader and a really good business person,” Corvi said. “But he also has this human side to him where he cares about people.”

Frank Anderson Shrontz was born on Dec. 14, 1931, in Boise, Idaho. He was the son of Thurlyn Shrontz, who owned a bicycle shop, and the former Florence Anderson.

In 1954, he graduated with a law degree from the University of Idaho in Boise before earning an MBA from Harvard University four years later.

Shrontz spent most of his career at Boeing. He started as a contracts coordinator in 1958 before working as an executive in several departments including sales and marketing, and planning.

In 1973, Shrontz left the company to become assistant secretary of the US Air Force and spent the last year of President Gerald Ford’s administration as assistant secretary for defense.

Shrontz returned to Boeing in 1977 as vice president of contract planning and administration. He spent the next four years as general manager of the company’s commercial airplane division responsible for manufacturing the 707, 727 and 737 aircraft and became the unit’s president in 1984.

His wife, the former Harriet Houghton, died in 2012. They had three sons: Craig, Richard and David.

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