Boeing

Boeing hosted an open house at the McClellan Air Force Base NCO Club in Sacramento today to acquaint Sacramento Air Logistics Center (ALC) aircraft depot maintenance workers at the base with the company and its plans for privatizing in place the work they do at McClellan.

Les Lackman, vice president and general manager of the Seal Beach (Calif.)-based North American Aircraft Division of Boeing North American, Inc., said, "The whole spirit of our approach is to keep jobs in Sacramento and to keep McClellan people doing those jobs. The base has been scheduled for closure as part of the government's Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

"Boeing and another contractor have been awarded $750,000 contracts to study ways to privatize depot maintenance work in place, with the goals of reducing costs to the government and keeping jobs and payroll in Sacramento. Also under study by the Air Force is the feasibility of transferring the work to its other depots, such as one at Hill Air Force Base, Utah.

For the work at McClellan, Boeing has assembled a team of key aircraft maintenance experts with broad experience in all phases of the work. One of the team's primary considerations as it analyzes privatization requirements will be the retention of as many ALC employees as possible in the conversion to privatized maintenance.

(Boeing carried out the first privatization in place of work at a military depot in the U.S. last year, shifting missile maintenance work at Newark Air Force Base, Ohio, to the private sector on Oct. 1, 1996. When it took on that task a year earlier, it promised to offer at least 95 percent of the available jobs to the Newark workforce -- and did so. More than 91 percent made the transition on Oct. 1, 1996 and they still are employed there. Boeing also has privatized a government-owned Australian aerospace concern, AeroSpace Technologies of Australia, or ASTA.)

Lackman hosted the March 20 open house, and told attendees, "We look forward to getting better acquainted as we prepare for privatization. We believe privatization can be a 'win-win' situation in which the U.S. government reduces costs, the Air Force aircraft owners and operators get top-quality maintenance, and ALC employees and the Sacramento community continue to enjoy the economic benefits that accrue from keeping the work in Sacramento."

Over the years, Boeing has built more military aircraft that any other U.S. airplane manufacturer, including bombers such as the B-17, the B-25, the B-52 and the B-1B and fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, the F-86 Sabrejet and the F-100 Supersabre. Boeing has also carried out major modification work on F-111s at the Sacramento Air Logistics Center.