New Leadership at BBJ
By Allison Medoff
Steve Taylor, chief pilot of Boeing Business Jets (BBJ) is next up as company president, replacing Steve Hill, who is retiring after 30 years. After Taylor finds his own chief pilot replacement, his next big assignment is to get the field-service network and the people in place as the BBJ business model expands to encompass twin-aisle airplanes.
Taylor got his foot in the air at age one month-and-a-half in an Aero Commander plane ride. Following in dad’s footsteps, Taylor went to work for Boeing as a buyer with a duel degree in business administration and economics and later earning a degree in mechanical engineering. Working in flight operations and teaching pilots airplane performance until 1997, he was then offered a job as sales director selling 737s. Still a newbie, Taylor had never flown professionally and entered the Boeing training program after he decided he needed a 737 type rating (allowance to fly a certain aircraft model that requires additional training) in order to talk with customers about the craft. A novice in the field just years before, Taylor returned a seasoned veteran with almost 3000 flying hours.
In 2007, Mike Hewitt, BBJ chief pilot looked throughout the Boeing organization to find a pilot with the right credentials to replace him. Found, was Steve Taylor who enters his new presidency following the best advice he knows, “If you don’t have time to do it right in the first place, then when will you ever find the time to go back and fix it?”
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