Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Jim McNerney oversees a company with more than 170,000 employees and $68.7 billion in annual revenues. He sat down with AW&ST Editor-in-Chief Anthony L. Velocci, Jr., and Senior Business Editor Joseph C. Anselmo to discuss major issues in the aerospace and defense industry heading into this year's Farnborough air show.

W. James McNerney, Jr.

Age: 62

Career: Began in 1975 at Procter & Gamble. Held top positions at General Electric, including president and CEO of GE Aircraft Engines. Was chairman and CEO of 3M before taking current post at Boeing in 2005.

Education: B.A. from Yale University and M.B.A. from Harvard University

Did you know: McNerney, a pitcher, played on the Yale baseball team with future U.S. President George W. Bush?

AW&ST: With a large number of orders on the books for the 787, how confident are you that Boeing will be able to manage the production ramp-up to meet your customers' delivery expectations?

McNerney: I am highly confident that the supply chain can support our orderbook. That's not to say there might be a glitch somewhere along the line, but the production is beginning to flow, and we're beginning to take normal production airplanes off the line. We're on time with our new assembly operation down in South Carolina.

Aviation Week hosted a civil aircraft manufacturing conference in May, and the biggest squawk we heard from suppliers was about handling the many engineering changes.