Caterpillar and Boeing Show Headquarters Don’t Matter
For a growing number of US manufacturing companies, where the home office is situated is increasingly irrelevant.
Caterpillar’s home office has moved from Peoria, Illinois, to a Chicago suburb and is destined for Irving, Texas.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
The headquarters moves by Caterpillar Inc. and Boeing Co. are a sign of how detached the corporate mailbox is becoming from industrial companies’ core manufacturing operations.
Caterpillar announced on Tuesday that it would move its global headquarters to an existing office in Irving, Texas — part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area — from its current location in the Chicago suburb of Deerfield, Illinois. It’s the second big manufacturing company to ditch Illinois in as many months, with Boeing announcing in May that it would move its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia, from Chicago. What’s particularly striking about both moves is just how few jobs will be affected: In Caterpillar’s case, the headquarters shift involves about 230 employees. That compares with the more than 17,000 mostly manufacturing workers that will continue to operate in Illinois for now and Caterpillar’s total global workforce of more than 107,000. At Boeing, the office reshuffling is primarily about finding new desks for Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun and Chief Financial Officer Brian West. Asked this week how many jobs would move to Virginia, Calhoun said: “Almost none — like none.” Boeing isn’t planning any new buildings; the company will instead fill unused space at its existing defense campus in Arlington.