Alan Mulally, who graduated from Lawrence High School and Kansas University and now works as the top boss at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, landed the second-best executive performance of 2005, according to Business Week magazine.

The magazine included Mulally, the Boeing division’s CEO, on its annual list of top-performing executives, ranking him behind only Steve Jobs, who snagged the top spot on the strength of Apple’s wildly successful iPod advances. Also appearing on the list, at No. 11, is Gary Forsee, chief executive officer of Sprint Nextel, who led Sprint’s $35 billion takeover of Nextel and is steering the company toward wireless technologies; the firm maintains its operational headquarters in Overland Park.

Mulally was launded for engineering a “remarkable recovery” at Boeing Commercial Airplanes following the 9-11 terror attacks by streamlining production and turning Boeing’s “superefficient” 787 Dreamliner into the hottest-selling new jetliner in history.