Boeing advertisement lacks the state’s seal of approval

EVERETT — Whoops! A small oversight in a full-page ad in Thursday’s Daily Herald has the Boeing Co. on the wrong side of the law. Sort of.

The ad highlights Boeing’s robust and growing presence in Washington. It used the state seal without state approval.

“It was an oversight,” said Paul Bergman, a spokesman for the aerospace giant.

It’s illegal to use the state seal in a way that may “be construed to operate in any way as an endorsement of any business, organization, product, service, or article,” according to state law.

But the state isn’t too worried about the transgression.

The Secretary of State’s Office is tasked with approving use of the state seal outside the scope of government. It also investigates reports of misuse and can refer cases to the state Attorney General’s Office for enforcement.

“I am not going to refer this to the attorney general,” Assistant Secretary of State Mark Neary said Thursday.

He said he’ll try to contact Boeing officials to make sure they understand that including the seal in the ad was improper.

“My message to them would be to remind them that use of the state seal is prohibited in conjunction with an advertisement for a business,” he said.

Bergman said the company is “pleased our public information is generating interest in Boeing’s growth and investments in Puget Sound. We look forward to continue sharing how a strong aerospace industry benefits everyone.”

The ad’s intent, at least in part, seems to be to dispel concern about Boeing’s commitment to the region.

Fretting about Boeing leaving metro Puget Sound is practically a pastime for some here. To hear some talk about it, we might wake up tomorrow to find that Boeing had hastily thrown its factories and offices in a suitcase and caught a red-eye flight out of the state.

The concern isn’t without substance. Boeing moved its headquarters to Chicago in 2001 to put space between its brain trust and the Evergreen State. The company has since undertaken two nationwide searches for assembly sites, for the first 787 line and for the 777X. And in 2009 it decided to put a second 787 line in South Carolina, which many aerospace analysts said had more to do with company leaders’ antipathy for unions than economics. And the company has recently announced plans to move thousands of engineering and defense jobs out of Washington.

No, Boeing is not wedded to Washington.

Still, the company isn’t leaving anytime soon. It delivered 723 commercial airplanes last year, and 689 of those were assembled in Boeing’s Everett and Renton plants. About half of its employees — roughly 81,000 Boeing workers — are based in metro Puget Sound. Half of those people, about a quarter of Boeing’s workforce, work in Everett.

Since merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, Boeing has increased the percent of its workforce based in Washington while drawing down in California and other states.

Boeing defense programs in St. Louis face an uncertain future, while Boeing’s commercial airplane programs in Washington are booming.

But that doesn’t mean Boeing thinks it has to build and design airplanes in Washington.

Olympia reporter Jerry Cornfield contributed. Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.