Alan Mulally

Alan Roger Mulally (born August 4, 1945) is an American aerospace engineer and manufacturing executive.

Mulally graduated from the University of Kansas, also his mother's alma mater, with Bachelor of Science (1968) and Master of Science (1969) degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering.

He was also a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

He began his career with Boeing as an engineer in 1969 and was largely credited with Boeing's resurgence against Airbus in the mid-2000s.

Mulally is also widely credited with turning around Ford during the Great Recession, when American competitors were declared bankrupt and were bailed out by the federal government.

Mulally was hired by Boeing immediately out of college in 1969 as an engineer.

He held a number of engineering and program management positions, making contributions to the Boeing 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and Boeing 777 projects.

He led the cockpit design team on the 757/767 project.

Its revolutionary design featured the first all-digital flight deck in a commercial aircraft, the second two-man crew for long range aircraft after the Airbus A300, and a common type rating for pilots on two different aircraft.

He received a Master's degree in Management (S.M.) as a Sloan Fellow from MIT's Sloan School of Management in 1982.

He said that he could not understand why the company previously scrapped the Taurus, which had been one of the company's best sellers until losing ground in the late 1990s.

Mulally took over "The Way Forward" restructuring plan at Ford to turn around its massive losses and declining market share.

Mulally's cost-cutting initiatives led to the company's first profitable quarter in two years.

Dividends to shareholders were also suspended.

He worked on the 777 program first as director of engineering and, from September 1992, as vice president and general manager.

He was later named as vice president of Engineering for the commercial airplane group.

He is known and recognized for elevating Phil Condit's "Working Together" philosophy through and beyond the 777 program.

In 1994, Mulally was promoted to senior vice president of Airplane Development and was in charge of all airplane development activities, flight test operations, certification, and government technical liaison.

In 1997, Mulally became the president of the Boeing Information, Space & Defense Systems and senior vice president.

He served as the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes from 1998 to 2006, and later as president and chief executive officer of the Ford Motor Company from 2006 to 2014.

He held this position until 1998 when he was made president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes; chief executive officer duties were added in 2001.

Following the forced resignations of CEOs Phil Condit in 2003 and Harry Stonecipher in 2005 of parent The Boeing Company, Mulally was considered one of the leading internal candidates for the position.

When Mulally was passed over in both instances, questions were raised about whether he would remain with the company.

For Mulally's performance at Boeing, Aviation Week & Space Technology named him as person of the year for 2006.

Former Ford CEO Donald Petersen recommended Mulally to Ford, and he was named the President and CEO of Ford Motor Company on September 5, 2006, succeeding Bill Ford, who became executive chairman.

Mulally called his Lexus LS430 the 'finest car in the world', just as Ford was about to announce his selection as CEO, making the point that Ford was not then in a leadership position, though he then faced some criticism and switched to driving Ford models.

William Clay Ford Jr.. had been searching for his successor as Ford CEO for some time, with Daimler AG's Dieter Zetsche and Renault/Nissan Motors's Carlos Ghosn both turning down the offer.

One of Mulally's first decisions at Ford was to bring back the Taurus nameplate.

In 2006, Mulally led the effort for Ford to borrow US$23.6 billion by mortgaging all of Ford's assets.

In 2007, he presided over the sale of Jaguar Cars and Land Rover to Tata Motors, an Indian car and truck manufacturer.

Mulally said that he intended to use the money to finance a major overhaul and provide “a cushion to protect for a recession or other unexpected event". At the time, the loan was interpreted as a sign of desperation, but is now widely credited with stabilizing Ford's financial position, compared to crosstown rivals General Motors and Chrysler, both of whom subsequently went bankrupt during the automotive industry crisis of 2008–2009. Ford was the only one of the Detroit Three that did not ask for a government loan. Mulally did testify before the United States Congress in favor of government loans for General Motors and Chrysler, discussing the impact to the economy and to other automobile manufacturers if parts suppliers were to go bankrupt in the light of a GM or Chrysler collapse. In May 2009, Ford chairman William Clay Ford, who hired Mulally, said that "Alan was the right choice [to be CEO], and it gets more right every day".

Mulally's achievements at Ford are chronicled in the book American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. Hoffman, published in 2012.

On July 15, 2014, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of Google.

, a position which he had left by 2024.

In 2015, Mulally was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum.

Mulally was born in Oakland, California, the son of Lauraine Lizette (Clark) and Charles R. Mulally, who met at a USO dance.

Mulally grew up in his mother's hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, where he was a member of Plymouth Congregational Church.

He considered Rev. Dale Turner "a mentor and an inspiration".

He used to sit at the front of the church to study the minister's influence on the congregation.

Mulally said that he found himself motivated at the age of 17 by president John F. Kennedy's challenge to send a man to the moon.