Boeing’s Board Won’t Limit CEO Search to Aerospace Executives

Boeing Co.’s board of directors, which ousted Chief Executive Harry C. Stonecipher in March, will consider candidates for the CEO job with no experience in the aerospace industry, Chairman Lewis Platt said Tuesday.

“We’re now in the process of screening candidates and we’ve drafted a very good -- I’d say excellent -- job description and narrowed a long list of candidates to a short list, which includes both internal and external candidates,” Platt told analysts and investors at a meeting in Seattle.

Aerospace experience is considered a “high want” by Boeing’s board in its outline of the qualities it’s seeking in the person who will replace interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer James Bell, Platt said.

Candidates must have experience in manufacturing and working with government agencies in Washington, and Platt said they wouldn’t come from companies significantly smaller than Boeing.

Boeing’s board ousted Stonecipher on March 7 for having an affair with another Boeing executive.

Alan Mulally, head of commercial airplanes, and James Albaugh, head of Chicago-based Boeing’s defense business, are considered the most likely internal candidates for the position.

Boeing also confirmed Tuesday that it would launch construction of a freighter version of the company’s long-range 777 aircraft.

The aircraft will be capable of flying 10,843 miles, making it the world’s longest-range aerial freighter.

Air France will take the first delivery in the fourth quarter of 2008 and will gradually replace all five of its Boeing 747-200s with the new freighters.

Shares of Boeing rose 61 cents to $62.25 on the New York Stock Exchange.