US President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated a senior Boeing Company official to be deputy secretary of defense, putting an engineer-turned-defense industry executive in the No. 2 position at the Pentagon.
The White House gave no explanation as to why Trump has tapped Patrick Shanahan, Boeing's senior vice president in charge of supply chain and operations, for the top Pentagon position at a time when the US is grappling with global security challenges.
Patrick Shanahan, a senior Boeing Company official (Yonhap)
Other positions Shanahan served in at Boeing include senior vice president of airplane programs at Boeing Commercial Airplanes where he oversaw the management of profit and loss for the 737, 747, 767, 777 and 787 programs.
He also served as vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems and vice president and general manager for Rotorcraft Systems in Philadelphia, where he was responsible for all US Army Aviation, including the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, the CH-47 Chinook and the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, the White House said.
Shanahan graduated from the University of Washington and earned a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management, it said. (Yonhap)
