Boeing

More than 1,500 children of employees at Boeing facilities across Southern California today will get an inside look at the industrial world where their parents work, as part of a Career Day program for 12- to 19-year old students.

At Boeing facilities in Anaheim, Canoga Park, Downey, Long Beach, Palmdale and Seal Beach, groups of youngsters will accompany their parents to work as part of the program designed to expose them to the vast career opportunities Boeing offers and teach them about the skills and training needed to qualify for various jobs.

Participants in the program were selected by random drawings from names of children submitted by Boeing parents. An employee committee at each plant organized activities for the day.

At the Douglas Products Division in Long Beach, where commercial jetliners are built, more than 200 students of junior high and high school age will arrive before 7 a.m. for an opening briefing. Organized into eight groups according to the students' previously expressed career interests, they will fan out across the plant. Each group will spend 45 minutes in each of three different departments doing work related to the students' interests. All will tour a newly completed airplane being prepared for delivery to an airline customer.

At Douglas, Career Day events were organized as a service project by a steering committee of the Amelia Earhart Society, an association of women employees.

Also in Long Beach, another 200 young people will report to Boeing's Military Airlift and Tanker Programs division, home of the U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo lifter. They will tour the C-17 assembly line, visit a flight simulator, inspect a finished airplane and observe workers training in the division's advanced craftsmanship learning center.

At the Space Systems headquarters in Seal Beach, 140 sons and daughters of employees will share in a program that includes tours of Global Positioning Satellite facilities, wind and water test chamber demonstrations, a simulated fire fighting demonstration and a presentation on careers in the field of corporate law. The afternoon will be spent at the parents' workstations.

The Reusable Space Systems facility in Downey, home of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles, is bringing in 200 youngsters for the day. Their program, with an emphasis on engineering, includes a visit to the Shuttle Mission Support room, presentations on computer aided design and software engineering, and tours of laboratory and test areas.

Boeing's Anaheim facility will host 120 sons and daughters for a morning orientation on aerospace electronics, tours of the plant and an afternoon spent on the job with parents or sponsoring relatives. The Anaheim plant is home to two Boeing Information & Communications Systems business segments, Electronic Systems and Missile Defense and Communications & Information Management Systems. The plant's National Management Association organized the program.

At Boeing's Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power unit in Canoga Park, some 500 young people are signed up for a "shadow your parent" day including plant tours and career advice presentations. Events are scheduled starting with the earliest shift at 5 a.m. and continuing into the third shift at 11 p.m. Rocketdyne produces rocket engines for space launch vehicles and spacecraft power systems.

Another 160 young people will visit to the Boeing facility in Palmdale. They will see the work their parents do in maintenance and modification activities on NASA's Space Shuttle vehicles. The orbiter Atlantis is now undergoing overhaul and upgrade at the facility.

Some 30,000 young people were expected to take part in Career Day activities at Boeing sites across the country as part of the company's support of educational programs in grade schools, high schools and colleges and universities.