Boeing is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures and sells fixed-wing aircraft, rotorcraft, rockets and satellites. It also provides leasing and product support services. Boeing is among the largest global aircraft manufacturers, is the second-largest aerospace & defense contractor in the world based on 2012 revenue and is the US' largest exporter by dollar value. Boeing stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The Boeing Company's corporate headquarters are located in Chicago and the company is led by Chairman and CEO James McNerney. Boeing is organized into five primary divisions: Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA); Boeing Defense, Space & Security (BDS); Engineering, Operations & Technology; Boeing Capital; and Boeing Shared Services Group. In 2013, Boeing recorded $86.623 billion in sales, ranked 30th on the Fortune magazine "Fortune 500" list (2013), ranked 95th on the "Fortune Global 500" list (2013), and ranked 26th on the "World's Most Admired Companies" list (2013).
The success of this aviation company began when the founder of Boeing, William E.Boeing, bought a shipyard in Seattle on the Duwamish River, which later became his first airplane factory. Boeing, a graduate from Yale University incorporated Boeing on July 15. 1916 as ‘Pacific Aero Products Co.’ which later transformed the company into a world’s largest aircraft manufacturer throughout the aviation history. Between World War I and II, Boeing grew to be one of the largest aircraft by supplying the military with training and fighting planes, pioneering airmail planes and routes, and developing early passenger planes. During World War II, Boeing was ‘one of the country’s leading defense and space contractors’. The B-17 “Flying Fortress” and B-29 ‘Super Fortress’ bombers were an essential military force, and the B-52, and eight-engine bomber that made debut in 1952, had been used in the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf-War