Page 146 - MY STORY

OWNING SOME SCIENTISTS

When Douglas built the Huntington Beach facility they
set aside one new building to house an exceptionally
prodigious scientific community. This became the

Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) of Douglas Aircraft
Co. I mean, no kidding, these scientists were the crème of
the cream in their community. No expense was spared in

the hiring and facilitating of that facility.

The scientists and the facilities were unmatched in our

industry. Only first-class stuff went in that building. It
was enough to make us engineers working everyday

problems in our labs seriously salivate whenever we had
cause to visit that facility and interact with all those brains
and facilities. The job of the scientists in the ARL? Just
do your thing. Research what you like, do experiments as

you like, and whatever happens -- do not worry about the
products being developed and implemented by Douglas

Aircraft Co.

During the course of the merger with McDonnell and

certainly after the loss of MOL, financial pressures
caused McDonnell Douglas to seriously retrench from its
lofty applied research goals. In fact, after the merger with

McDonnell, it was recognized that most the serious