Starbucks. Target. Best Buy. IBM. Boeing.
As premier brand-name American corporations continue slashing jobs across the sectors, President Obama met this morning with some of the nation’s top CEOs to discuss the ailing U.S. economy. And, as befits a tech-savvy commander in chief, quite a few of the chiefs invited to the White House have ties to the world of technology.
"They make things, they hire people," Obama said of the 13 CEOs he joined in the Roosevelt Room. "They are on the front lines in seeing the enormous problems in the economy right now. Their ideas and their concerns have helped to shape our recovery package in order to get this economy back on track."
In the meeting: Steve Appleton (chairman, president and CEO, Micron Technology), David Barger (CEO, Jet Blue), Greg Brown (president and co-CEO, Motorola Inc.), John Bryson (retired CEO, Edison International), David M. Cote (chairman and CEO, Honeywell), Debra Lee (president and CEO, BET Holdings Inc.), Anne Mulcahy (chairman and CEO, Xerox), Sam Palmisano, (chairman, CEO and president, IBM), Antonio Perez (chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak Company), Eric Schmidt (chairman and CEO, Google), Michael Splinter (Applied Materials), Wendell Weeks (chairman and CEO, Corning) and Ron Williams (CEO, Aetna).
And speaking of techies, word is that Symantec CEO John Thompson is in the running for secretary of commerce. Thompson, a big Obama contributor, has been spotted on the Hill conferring with senators and has apparently won the support of California’s Barbara Boxer.
