As the new president of Boeing Realty Corp., Philip W. Cyburt has the daunting task of selling more than 23 percent of Boeing Co.’s nationwide real estate holdings.

Cyburt said it’s part of an ongoing effort to pare down the operation formed when Boeing and McDonnell Douglas merged in 1997.

“Boeing is about products and people, not real estate,” says Cyburt, whose office is in Long Beach. “The key is that aerospace as a whole has a tendency to have a lot of real estate holdings. We’re trying to figure out a way to maximize those holdings.”

In his new role, Cyburt oversees all of Boeing’s real estate assets and will be responsible for divesting 29 million square feet of industrial and office space by the end of 2001. Boeing currently owns property with a total value of $9 billion.

There are no plans to divest the 24.2 million square feet of property the firm owns in Southern California.

In the months ahead, Cyburt will meet with facility and business managers along with financial analysts from the various Boeing and McDonnell Douglas divisions to identify unneeded property. In the process, he will split his time between Boeing Realty’s Long Beach base and corporate headquarters in Seattle.

Cyburt came to Boeing from McDonnell Douglas Realty, when the company was acquired in 1997. He joined McDonnell Douglas in 1990 as director of marketing and leasing. In 1993 he became vice president of the division.

Born and raised in Orange, Cyburt became a professional baseball player after high school, spending six years in the minor leagues with farm clubs for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland Athletics. He left baseball in 1982 after his contract wasn’t renewed.

“The lifestyle is difficult, you’re constantly traveling,” he says. “It’s betting on something you can’t control, and I wanted to control my destiny.”

After baseball, Cyburt enrolled at Chapman University in Orange and earned his bachelor’s degree in finance.

Jolie Gorchov