Another Trip to the Curt Weldon Employment Agency

By Ken Silverstein

As I have previously noted here, being a friend or relative of Congressman Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, appears to be a surer path to gainful employment than a Harvard MBA. To review: one of the congressman's daughters got a job with an Italian arms maker with close ties to her daddy; another daughter started a lucrative lobbying career, exclusively representing clients who had been helped out by Weldon; and Cecelia Grimes, a real estate agent and long-time friend who lives in his district, is now making good money as a (Weldon-connected) defense lobbyist.

Weldon is a powerhouse on the House Armed Services Committee, and defense contractors have traditionally been his biggest campaign donors—so it isn't surprising to learn that his political sponsors are looking out for one of the congressman's sons. The Delco Times, a newspaper in Weldon's district, recently ran a story on Andrew Weldon's exciting career as a race car driver. Unless you manage to break into the NASCAR circuit, racing cars is a tough way to make a living. But Andrew at least found a sponsor this year—a firm called Schaffer Motorsports.

Schaffer Motorsports, I learned, is owned by Tom Schaffer, a senior employee at Boeing; One of the sponsors of Schaffer Motorsports is Boeing Helicopters Credit Union, whose logo appears on the racecar Andrew Weldon drives. Boeing, in turn, is Weldon's top career patron, to the tune of $62,050 in donations.

Tom Schaffer has a senior position in the Composite Fabrication Department for Boeing's controversial V-22 Osprey, at a plant in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania—just outside Weldon's district. Designed to take off like a helicopter and fly like a plane (and named after a fish-eating raptor with a five-foot wingspan), the Osprey has been plagued by problems—including, according to a 2002 Los Angeles Times series, multiple crashes that have killed dozens of U.S. Marines. In 1990, then-defense secretary Dick Cheney sought to pull the V-22's funding and put the Osprey out of its misery—an indicator of how screwed-up the project was, as Cheney is normally a huge fan of massive, money-burning defense boondoggles (although, admittedly, he does like to kill birds).

But Cheney's best efforts were thwarted when Curt stepped up. “The Osprey,” said a 2001 story in North Carolina's News & Observer, “has probably had no greater friend [over the years] than Rep. Curt Weldon.” In 1989, Weldon “formed the Tilt-rotor Technology Coalition, a group of House members that met every week to plot ways to save the V-22. . . . In 1990, to boost the program's profile, the group staged a dramatic landing on the Capitol grounds of a tilt-rotor aircraft painted in red, white and blue.”

Like his father, Andrew Weldon loves dangerous, expensive vehicles. But whether it's dad Curt in Congress, or son Andrew on the speedway, they both count on Boeing to help them win races.

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