Throughout the pandemic we have observed, and have been told to observe, how group video conferences and other tech methods enable physical proximity and location to hold much less relevance or importance. But some here are seeming to go back in time.
Of course, this SLF/attorney does not dispute that closeness, in a variety of ways, of management to engineering and engineers as well as manufacturing, is critically important in aerospace and especially after the MAX debacles. But at the same time, heaps of derision have been unloaded on Boeing's board - deservedly - for its various abdications and greedy missteps, if not worse. Getting the board and top management away from Seattle might be a better move.... provided there also will be offices just below the org-chart level of corporate hq located next door to Seattle - and Charleston.
And hey, I never liked that building on the river downtown in Windy, and WR here, not sorry at all to see it go. Walked past it on my way to serving the almighty Billable Hour many times.