Big Qwest Field party swells with pride in jobs well done

Boeing pulled out all the stops for its 787 Dreamliner rollout event at Qwest Field, enlisting a marching band to greet guests entering the stadium and tossing beach balls into the crowd to build enthusiasm.

The pep rally-style party served its purpose. The 22,000 Boeing employees, retirees and their guests who watched the live simulcast Sunday afternoon cheered, clapped and shouted as if they were watching the actual rollout at the Everett plant.

Flashy video snippets chronicling five decades of Boeing's history played on the stadium's two giant screens. A Boeing worker revved up the crowd by calling out trivia questions about past Boeing airplanes.

Gov. Christine Gregoire, one of the keynote speakers, said she opted to attend the Qwest Field event rather than the rollout in Everett: "I chose to be with the workers that made this happen."

Speakers applauded Boeing employees for their work on the company's newest commercial airplane since the 777 was introduced in 1994. They also acknowledged Boeing retirees — about 42,000 in the Puget Sound area, many active in the Boeing Bluebills organization.

"All of us together, whether you worked on commercial or military products, deserve credit for laying the foundation of the airplane we are celebrating today," said Frank Shrontz, a retired Boeing chairman and chief executive.

The 787 is particularly significant to Washington, not just because of Boeing's economic impact but because the state had to fight to prevent production from moving out of state, Gregoire said after the event.

The state put together a $3 billion tax-incentive package in 2003 to keep Boeing from doing final assembly elsewhere. The company eventually decided to build the plane in Everett after an eight-month nationwide search.

"We had to compete for it and we won," Gregoire said.

Boeing employee B.J. Shamburger, who works on the 787 program and has been with the company for 25 years, said she would have preferred to attend the limited-seating Everett event but was happy the company decided to extend the celebration for employees.

Shamburger also was pleased to see so many retirees in the crowd. "It's a combination of old and new."

One glitch at the Qwest Field party was the erratic audio streaming from Everett. The sound, though not the video, echoed and sometimes skipped, making it hard to understand television journalist Tom Brokaw, emcee of the main event.

Because of the audio, it was also difficult to hear the multiple international speakers — Boeing's suppliers — who were sometimes talking in a different language anyway.

"I hope they fly the airplane better than they did the audio," said Ted Blattenbauer, 74, of Kent, who worked for Boeing for 36 years before retiring in 1992.

Business reporter Caroline Davis contributed to this report. Kirsten Orsini-Meinhard: 425-745-7807 or kmeinhard@seattletimes.com.