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Condit affable and well-liked at work and in community

By Kyung M. Song and Shirleen Holt
Seattle Times staff reporters

	STEPHEN J. CARRERA / AP, 2002 Phil Condit flies a student's paper airplane as Jonathan Sosa watches during science class at a Chicago school in 2002. Condit taught a class on "How Things Fly" as part of a "Principal-For-A-Day" program.
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Phil Condit is a brilliant engineer and Eagle Scout who became one of America's biggest and most visionary business titans through indisputable meritocracy.

Yet Condit's most enduring legacy at Boeing may well be as the man who presided over the company's eclipse by European jet maker Airbus, led the move of Boeing's headquarters out of Seattle and resigned under pressure after an ethics scandal.

Condit's abrupt exit yesterday morning ended a stellar 38-year career at Boeing, three years shy of retirement. The news stirred genuine lament among the aerospace company's employees — particularly among Boeing engineers — who despite their deep cynicism about Boeing's business decisions never quite stopped regarding the affable Condit as one of their own.

Condit spent what must have been a bittersweet day yesterday sending e-mails to employees and well-wishers. Among them was a note to Seattle's ACT Theatre, to which he had recently made a surprise donation of $500,000.

"He just said that he and (wife) Geda felt good about the resignation and that ACT remained a top priority for them," said managing director Susan Trapnell. "Don't you think that's incredible?"

Phil Condit Born: Born Aug. 2, 1941, in Berkeley, Calif. Education: Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 1963; master's in aeronautical engineering, Princeton University, 1965; master's in management, MIT, 1975; doctorate in engineering, Science University of Tokyo, 1997. Career: Joined Boeing in 1965 as an aerodynamics engineer on the team developing the Supersonic Transport (SST); patented design for a flexible wing; played a key role on engineering of the 757 in the 1970s; became general manager of the 777 division in 1986; named executive vice president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 1989; promoted to president, joined board of directors in 1992; became CEO in April 1996; added the title of chairman of the board in February 1997 at age 55. Community involvement: Boy Scouts of America, National Executive Board; ACT Theatre, board chairman; New Leaders for New Schools mentor; Chicago Public Education Fund, board member. Family: Married; two daughters; grandchildren. Sources: Securities and Exchange Commission, "Legend & Legacy — The Story of Boeing and its people," The Boeing Co., The Associated Press

He is a hands-on philanthropist who taught his beneficiaries what he knew about business. Trapnell considers him a mentor.

"He was very open and very perceptive about human nature and organizational behavior. He was always the person I wanted to talk with about problems. He's a problem-solver."

One especially big problem came in the late 1990s, when the theater was planning a major expansion from Queen Anne to downtown Seattle. The move, which involved a $35 million capital campaign, was causing squabbling among board members.

Condit got up to speak, telling the story of the creation of the 777, a project rife with confusion, conflict and turmoil.

In short, a success story.

"It was galvanizing," Trapnell said. "He put it in a context that made everybody enthusiastic about it."

Condit's resignation from Boeing carried the air of a changing of the guard at Boeing, which is now headed by two executives who did not rise through the ranks, former McDonnell Douglas CEO Harry Stonecipher and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Lewis Platt.

"It's the end of an era," said Harold Carr, a retired Boeing public-relations executive who worked for Condit until just after he became Boeing chairman in 1997. "He is just an outstanding guy."

Condit bought a $2 million condo in Chicago after relocating Boeing's headquarters there in 2001. Condit said he and his wife will now spend more time in Seattle. They own a house and land in Redmond.

The portly Condit never cut an imposing figure in person. He looks more at ease in knit shirts than in French cuffs. He can mingle easily with Boeing workers without sticking out as the top boss.

But Condit lived a jet-setter's life. He flew about 600 hours a year aboard a Boeing Business Jet decorated in an English-library style of his design. An engineer's engineer, Condit told a reporter that his airborne time works out to "75 eight-hour days."

Condit's 1999 marriage to Geda, a former Boeing engineer, was his fourth. Condit has two grown daughters and is a grandfather. Geda once quipped that her husband's three previous marriages show "that he makes better decisions in his business life than his personal life."

Condit's academic credentials rival that of any American CEO: an undergraduate mechanical-engineering degree from Berkeley, a master's in aeronautical engineering from Princeton and in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in engineering from Science University of Tokyo.

Condit was born in Berkeley, Calif., to a chemist father and a social worker mother. He earned his pilot license at 18. A Boy Scout, he never lost the passion for the uniform. Every year, he hosts a fund-raiser where the well-heeled spend $5,000 to sleep on cots, fly fish and sing camp songs.

Some do it to mingle with other well-connected business types, but there's little doubt why Condit does it.

"He knew all the words to all the Scouting songs," said John Creighton III, a lawyer with Preston, Gates & Ellis and a former Boy Scout. "You could tell the guy, his whole heart was in the Scouting experience."

The news surprised and disappointed Creighton's father, Jack, former CEO for Weyerhaeuser, who's now a director with Madrona Venture Group in Seattle.

Jack Creighton moves in the same circles as Condit. They co-chair the board of governors at the World Trade Center in Seattle and both are involved in Boy Scouts, as is John Creighton.

Jack Creighton's first impression of the Boeing executive, and one that has lasted, is that Condit is an upstanding guy. A normal guy.

"He makes people feel comfortable. He's down to earth, not a pompous, stuffed shirt."

Condit also was a cerebral manager who constantly mulled over Boeing's strategy and vision. But his track record as a visionary is yet unclear.

In 1997, Condit brokered Boeing's merger with McDonnell Douglas of St. Louis, the only other American manufacturer of passenger jetliners. But instead of fortifying its status as the world's dominant commercial jet maker, Boeing since the merger has ceded that title to Europe's Airbus.

In 2000, Condit hatched the idea to move Boeing's world headquarters out of South Seattle. He ordered an aide to secretly scout potential relocation sites.

When Boeing went public with its plan in March 2001, the bombshell ignited a torrent of acrimony in its hometown and irreparably altered Boeing's historical ties to the Puget Sound area.

Kyung Song: 206-464-2423 or ksong@seattletimes.com. Shirleen Holt: 206-464-8316 or sholt@seattletimes.com

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