BA Boeing Co

By Paul Sonne 

WASHINGTON -- The White House said Thursday that it would appoint a top Boeing Co. executive as deputy to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, further entrenching the top airplane maker and defense contractor's influence within the Trump administration.

The White House announced in a statement that Patrick Shanahan, Boeing's senior vice president for supply chain and operations, would serve as deputy secretary of defense, the No. 2 position at the Pentagon. Once confirmed, he will replace Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, who stayed on from the Obama administration under Mr. Mattis.

Mr. Shanahan has had a long career at Boeing, holding top positions in the company's commercial airplane, missile defense and rotary-wing aircraft divisions before overseeing supply chain and operations for the company.

The rotary-wing division of Boeing that Mr. Shanahan managed works closely with the Pentagon, providing the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, a combination of a helicopter and an airplane, as well as the CH-47 Chinook and the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter. The White House said Mr. Shanahan, who holds degrees from the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was in charge of all U.S. Army aviation while overseeing the unit at Boeing.

Boeing congratulated Mr. Shanahan in a statement, highlighting the longtime executive's 30 years of experience across all sectors of aerospace and defense, including stints in the company's commercial aviation, military and space programs.

Since his election, President Donald Trump has warmed to Boeing through meetings with the company's chief executive. In trying to broker a better deal with Lockheed Martin Corp. for additional F-35 aircraft, Mr. Trump made a public pricing request for Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornets, ostensibly pitting the contractors against one another. Mr. Trump also made a high-profile visit with his daughter, Ivanka, to a Boeing plant in South Carolina last month, where he gave a speech about American manufacturing to a large crowd of factory workers.

"May God bless the United States of America," he said at the end of the speech. "And God bless Boeing."

In additional Department of Defense appointments Thursday, the White House announced David Trachtenberg, the president and chief executive of Shortwaver Consulting LLC, will become principal undersecretary of defense for policy.

Mr. Trachtenberg will take over the Pentagon's policy post after serving as head of the strategic analysis division at CACI-National Security Research and in several previous roles at the Department of Defense, including most recently as the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Before that, Mr. Trachtenberg served as a longtime professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, where he led the committee's policy staff.

Both positions require Senate confirmation.

"These are all highly qualified individuals who were personally recommended by Secretary Mattis to the President for nomination," Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement regarding the six Defense Department appointments the White House announced.

Capt. Davis said Mr. Work had agreed to continue in the Pentagon's No. 2 post until his successor's Senate confirmation and praised his steady leadership during the transition.

"Secretary Mattis continues to have full confidence in him as he carries out crucial work in managing in the Department," Capt. Davis said.

Write to Paul Sonne at paul.sonne@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 16, 2017 13:16 ET (17:16 GMT)

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