When it comes to hiring new people, new Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has quite the nightmare ahead of him. He took office on Thursday and his to-do list is massive.

This week, the NTSB held hearings on the door-latching incident that affected Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 last January. The agency does not normally hold such hearings in public, but it deliberately chose to take this extra step to highlight Boeing’s failures in the matter.

It was a very serious and public attack on the American aircraft manufacturer, raising serious questions about its procedures, safety management system and corporate culture. And Kelly Ortberg, Boeing’s new CEO, started his new job one day after the hearings ended.

This was definitely not a coincidence. The new CEO’s move was announced months after the NTSB hearing. Since he is a Boeing outsider, it probably made sense to keep the new CEO away from this process. For now, anyway.

Still, Kelly Ortberg’s transition into his new role will not be easy. He will have to build working relationships with the NTSB, the FAA, the airlines and lessors, Boeing’s own machinists and engineers unions, suppliers – not to mention the U.S. Air Force and other military customers, NASA and probably others.

Is Kelly Ortberg bringing back “Working Together”?

The new CEO will also have to do this on a tight budget. Many in the industry will be watching Kelly Ortberg closely and his first steps in his new role to see how he responds to these challenges.

In a message to Boeing employees, Ortberg acknowledged Boeing’s problems with some encouraging statements:

“I can’t tell you how proud and excited I am to be a member of the Boeing team. While we obviously have a lot of work to do to restore trust, I am confident that together we will return the company to the industry leader we all expect it to be.

“Restoring trust starts with delivering on our commitments – whether it’s building high-quality and safe commercial aircraft, delivering defense and space products that enable our customers to achieve their mission, or maintaining our products so our customers can operate 24/7…”

The decision to use the words “Cooperation“ in the second sentence of his statement was probably no coincidence. The title of this message was “Our collaboration begins“Working Together” was a nickname Phil Condit introduced at Boeing when the company was developing the 777.

The transition from a collaborative, “work together” atmosphere to a more corporate-focused culture has often been cited as a cause of Boeing’s decline, and Kelly Ortberg likely wanted to set the tone with his first message as CEO.

Lots of attention

The next sentence’s list of aircraft quality and safety, as well as military and space products, is obviously part of that tone. Boeing’s other embarrassing story this week is that the Starliner astronauts may have to return to Earth on another vehicle – after being “stuck” (now you can use that word with an S) on the ISS for months.

Of course, the industry will judge Kelly Ortberg on more pragmatic measures than the crafting of a brief employee message (actually a press release). In particular, we need to watch to see what changes, if any, Ortberg makes to Boeing’s management in the coming weeks.

Boeing is still in the midst of its acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit CEO Pat Shanahan appears to have been a favorite for the Boeing CEO position. Instead, Kelly Ortberg was chosen by the Boeing board, but will he have a role for Shanahan?

Both men are engineers, and Shanahan has a reputation for problem-solving – a sought-after skill that plays an important role at Boeing today. It’s unclear how quickly Ortberg could implement radical changes at a company that has already made significant management changes in recent months.

The other encouraging step that Kelly Ortberg confirmed in his statement is that he will be based in Seattle to “…be close to the commercial aircraft programs“Many in the industry would welcome Boeing’s headquarters returning to the Puget Sound region, where most aircraft production and assembly traditionally takes place.

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