Betty Carey Legacy

Boeing 45 Year Service Award

Carey worked in Boeings A-2200 group when this service award was issued in 1987.

Betty was the first female expediter in the machine shop when she came to Boeing in 1942 to work on the XB-29. Then, in 1943 she moved to Renton to train other women expediters.

Betty worked in the experimental department until 1962. She followed every major test airplane built by Boeing through the 80s. “The XB-52 Program was the largest program I ever worked on,” said Betty.

In 1962 she went to Minuteman Engineering as a Logistics Analyst and worked 11 years on costs and schedules. In 1973 she returned to hourly work and remains today in that same group in Operations Technology where she has served as a factory dispatcher and production clerk.

Betty serves on the Board of Washington Resources Council and has attended many classes in recent years at the University of Washington experimental college.
 
“I have no retirement target date,” says Betty. “My next goal is to be the #1 women in Boeing longevity. I can remember years ago at Plant I reading about an employee’s long service and never dreamed that one day I might be the female with the longest service.”

Article on Betty Carey's Retirement, 1990

By Steve Copley, From an article in the Boeing News Seattle, 1990

    Don’t write any sappy farewells to Betty Carey.
    Sure, she spent 48 years and five months working for The Boeing Company before she retired June 30.
    Sure, as an expediter she participated in nearly every experimental aircraft Boeing built over nearly half a century.
    And, sure, she has some great and lasting memories of the people she worked with and the company she worked for.
    It’s just that Carey, up until last month a Boeing Commercial Airplane Group clerk in A-2200 at Plant II, is starting a new chapter on her life.
    “You know, I’ve never flown on a 747, but this November I’m flying to New Delhi,” she said. “I never dreamed I’d see the Taj Mahal.”
    She plans to take classes for senior citizens at the University of Washington.  She has been a member of the American Association of University Women since 1947.
    Carey also is a member of the Washington Resources Council, a charter member of the Museum of Flight, and she sells ice cream bars at Meany Hall to help provide money so poor children can attend concerts. As a member of the resources council, she has visited the Columbia Gorge and Olympic Peninsula to survey Washington State’s natural resources and the environmental impacts of the timber and fishing industries. 
    An earlier chapter in her life began when she went to work for Boeing on July 8, 1941. She can remember the onset of World War II, the 5,000th B-17 rolling out of Plant II and President Franklin Roosevelt riding through the 2-40 building’s main aisle, the Burma Road.
    She started work at Plant II, then moved to the original Boeing facility, Plant I. Eventually she would work at several sites, assigned to many experimental aircraft programs, from the B-29 to C-97, B-47 and B-52. She also participated in the refueling boom project for the KC-97, the fuel cell project for the B-52, landing gear testing for the B-47 and Minuteman cost and schedules engineering program.
    If it hadn’t been for six months off in 1967 to battle cancer, she would have been at Boeing more than 49 years, she said.
    Carey went to work for Boeing when she had just turned 20, and for 25 years she took care of her mother.
    “I never had any family,” she said, “so much of my family has been here.”
On June 30th, surrounded by the giant cranes and the sound of machinery for the last time, Betty Carey thought of her career in human terms.
    “I worked with expediters who were in their early 20s who are managers now.  I’m proud that they still came back for my retirement potluck.
    “In the past few years I’ve been working with the third generation of people I started working with.  That is one thing that has kept me young, keeping up with people in their 20s.”