President Obama plans to visit Boeing’s Everett assembly plant Friday morning for a further discussion of his plan to bolster American manufacturing.

Boeing is one of the nation’s largest export manufacturers.

The Everett plant he will visit Friday is the largest building by volume in the world. Boeng builds its 747, 767, 777 and 787 jets at the plant. The president’s own 747 began its existence in Everett.

The plant is also the site where Boeing will build 179 new aerial tankers for the Air Force. Those tankers are based on the commercial 767 airframe.

The Pentagon’s latest budget proposals which it the desks in Congress today proposes two cutbacks in big local Boeing aircraft programs.

The Navy says it wants to slow down deliveries of its new P-8A Poseiden maritime surveillance planes Boeing builds in Renton and at Boeing Field. The delivery cutbacks would save the Navy $5.2 billion through 2017 by taking delivery of 10 fewer of the twin-engine aircraft. The P8-A is based on Boeing’s popular 737 jetliner.

The production cutbacks wouldn’t take effect until 2015 and 2016 when the Navy would pare 10 planes from its projected delivery schedule. The …

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Boeing will soon begin final wind tunnel testing of its newest version of it popular 737 airliner, the company said today.

Testing will be conducted both in a wind tunnel in England for low-speed flying and in Seattle for higher speed cruising.

In that wind tunnel testing, Boeing will use a small-scale model to the proposed plane.

The wind tunnel testing will show whether the aerodynamic changes Boeing is planning to make to the plane will alter its handling characteristics or improve its efficiency.

Boeing is changing the engines and making alterations to the engine nacelles and struts that …

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A veteran health care administrator has been named president of St. Anthony Hospital in Gig Harbor.

Kurt Schley replaces Carole Peet who was the hospital’s first president. Peet became the chief executive of a 196-bed hospital in a Denver suburb in September.

Schley comes to Gig Harbor from Chattanooga, Tenn. where he was administrator of Memorial Healthcare System’s 52-acre campus.

Like St. Anthony’s parent company, Tacoma-based Franciscan Health System, the Tennessee health care company was part of Catholic Health Initiatives, one of the largest nonprofit health care systems in the country.

“Among the candidates for the position, Kurt stood out …

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The University of Washington Tacoma Milgard School of Business has announced the winners of its 11th annual Business Leadership Awards.

The winners will be honored at a dinner at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 24, at the Greater Tacoma Convention & Trade Center.

The winners for 2012 are:

• Business Leader of the Year: Luke Xitco, president and CEO of Tacoma’s Associated Petroleum Products.
• Small Business Leader of theYear: Tony G. Panagiotu, president of Panagiotu Pension Advisors of University Place.
• Nonprofit Business Leader of the Year: John R. Peterson, president of Bellarmine Preparatory School of Tacoma. …

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A name familiar in the Tacoma shipping community, TOTE, is now the moniker for a nationwide maritime company.

American Shipping Group, formerly parent company for TOTE, a shipping company connecting Tacoma with Anchorage, has become TOTE Inc.

TOTE Inc. has reorganized American Shipping Group’s five independently managed businesses into three groups, maritime, logistics and ship management. Here’s what’s included in each group:

· TOTE Maritime: Totem Ocean Trailer Express and Sea Star Line

· TOTE Ship Management: Interocean American Shipping

· TOTE Logistics: Alta Logistics and Spectrum Logistics

The company chief executive said the renaming decision was straightforward.

“We …

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Teams in Russia’s Continental Hockey League henceforth will only fly in Boeing or Airbus jets, the league decided this week.

The decision to ban flying in Russian-made planes came in the wake of a September crash that killed all members of a Russian hockey team as its Russian-made Yak-42 was attempting to takeoff.

The league also banned flights in aircraft more than 15 years old.

Airlines selected by the clubs for charter flights also must meet stringent financial and training standards.

An investigation of the crash blamed the tragedy not on the plane, but on insufficient flight crew training.

That …

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The draft of a new Port of Tacoma strategic plan calls for creation of a new common user container terminal, more cost-competitive rail service, development of the Tacoma as a strategic military port and attraction of more break bulk business to its terminals.

Those and other initiatives are designed to restart the port’s growth engine, which has been sputtering since the start of the recession more than three years ago.

The draft plan is the result of more than a year’s work by consultants, port commissioners and staff members.

A common user terminal would allow smaller customers who don’t want …

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