ML20055G780

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Investigative Interview of La Yandell on 881110 in Arlington,Tx.Pp 1-13.Related Info Encl
ML20055G780
Person / Time
Site: South Texas  STP Nuclear Operating Company icon.png
Issue date: 11/10/1988
From: Yandell L
NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION IV)
To:
Shared Package
ML20055C208 List:
References
FOIA-89-540 NUDOCS 9007240167
Download: ML20055G780 (15)
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INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEW OF:

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DATEt November 10, 1988 1:/.:'t:f,;d-

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LOCATIOHt. Arlington, Texas

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I BEFORE THE I

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2 U. S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1

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4 Interview oft LAWRENCE A. YANDELL 8

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8th Floor Law Library Region IV Offices

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8 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory L

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9 611 Ryan Plaza Arlington, Texas d

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Thursday,

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Il November 10, 1988 l

12 The interview of Lawrence A. Yandell commenced at 10:20 a.m.,

pursuant to agreement.

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APPEARANCES:

14 For the U.S. Nucloar Regulatory Commission:

15 l

DONNA ROWE, Investigator 16 Office of Inspector and Auditor j

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 17 Bethesda, Maryland 18 For the Witness, LAWRENCE A. YANDELL:

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I PR0CEEDINGS 3

MS. ROWEt Today is November the 10th, 1988.

3 The time is now 10:20 a.m.

4 My name is Donna M. Rowe.

I am an Investigator 5

with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of 6

Inspector and Auditor.

7 Other parties present include Mr. Lawrence 8

Yandell, Region IV employee.

We are located in the regional office of le Region IV, Arlington, Texas, and we will discuss primarily ll two areas of interest regarding the South Texas ef forts 12 in Bay City, Texas.

13 Before I ask you any questions, Mr. Yandell, 14 I have an OIA Administrative Misconduct Warning which we 18 read to all employees whenever we talk with them.

16 I will read it into the record and ask that 17 if you have no problems at that time to sign it.

18 I an an Investigator with the Office of.

I' Inspector and Auditor.

One of my functions is to investigate 20 the possibility of regulatory violations and other employee 21 misconduct which could lead to administrative disciplinary 22 action.

23 I intend to ask you a number of specific 24 questions regarding the official duties you are required 25-to perform and your conduct.

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I You are advised that you are required to 2

answer fully and truthfully my questions relating to your 3

official duties.

Here refusal to answer these questions 4

may be a basis for disciplinary action against you, which s

action may include dismissal.

6 11either your anevers nor any information 7

which is gained by reason of your statements can be used s

against you in any criminal proceeding, except a prosecution 9

for perjury or giving a false statement, le Mr. Yandell, do you understand the OIA Rights l

11 Warning?

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12 MR. YANDELL:

Yes, I do.

13 MS. ROWE Do you have a problem signing 14 the warning?

l 15 MR. YANDELL:

No, I do not.

16 MS. ROWE Okay.

I would ask you to do 17 so at this time.

13-MR. YANDELL:

[ Complies.)

19 MS. ROWE:

I'd like to ask you to administer 30 the oath.

21 THE REPORTER:

Would you raise your right 22 hand, please.

s 23 Whereupon, 24 LAWRENCE A. YANDELL, 2s the witness hereinbefore named, af ter being first duly Heritoge Reporting Corporation

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I sworn to testify the truth, the whole truth and nothing 2

but the truth, was examined and testified on his oath as 1

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3 follows:

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EXAMINATION

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BY MS. ROWE:

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Mr. Yandell, for the record, would you please 7

state your full name.

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My name is Lawrence A. Yandell, spelled j

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And your occupation, sir?

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I'm currently the Division Director for l

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1 13 Region IV of the U.S. NRC.

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And your home address?

is A

My home address is i

L.,

17 0

Thank you.

Is I would like to call your attention to an 1,

event which was alleged to have occurred on Sunday, June 20 28th, 1987, approximataly noon.

Actually, the event occurred 21 c.t noon.

I think it came to your attention around 2:00 22 p.m. that day.

This has to do with a vital area door 23 E.

24 inspection which was conducted by Mr. Bruce Earnest, Security l

25 Inspector from Region IV at the cast gatehouse.

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We were told that Mr. Earrest, upon conducting b

2 an inspection, was quite angry with the demeanor of the 3

utility personnel involved, primarily Mr. Lamb and I beTleve I

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4 there was another individual present at that time.

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A Sheesley.

6 0

Mr. Sheesley, okay.

7 I would like to get your in.- 6 =hnut the 8

events that led up to that conversation, which I understand 9

was somewhat heated.

Mr. Earnest was somewhat agitated 10 and apparently angry, and the appearance from your position is of this so-called alleged physical threat against Mr. Lamb 12 that he thought he had incurred.

P 13 A

Okay.

In terms of leading up to it, my only involvement was that I knewjas part of our preparations,.

14 15 for the day's activities, t ':.:t that Bruce was going to 16 be going out with Mr. Sheesley to conduct this test of 17 the doors.

is I saw when they left, and off they went.

l le Later that day, after this alleged incident l

- 20 had occurred, it was-brought to my attention that Mr. Sheesley 21 and Mr. Lamb had felt that they had been somewhat threatened i

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22 by Bruce's actions.

23 I only heard secondhand what occurred.

l 24 0

How did you hear this?

From whom did you 2s hear this secondhand?

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@t Ron filled me in a little bit) only to say i

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2 that he knew that there had been some words between Lamb,

. Sheesley and Bruce, and then I also heard it as part of 3

4 kind :" a routine meeting I had, and I think'it was with s

Mr. McBurnett and Mr. Vaughn.

6 0

We un.lerstand that there was a meeting held 7

in Mr. Lamb's office.

Is this the particular meeting?

8 A

I was not at that one.

9 0

Were you in Mr. Lamb's office in which he le told you or expressed concern about what had taken place 18 and to which you responded, "I'll take care of it"?

12 A

I don't remember if it was in his office, 4

13 but I was not present for the alleged incident.

I just 14 knew from the -- I'll use the word fallout, that there

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15 was some concern, and I think I did say, "Yes, I'll take 16 care of that."

17 I think in my testimony that I gave some 18 months back, the position I took was that although I didn't 19 know the details of what happened, I counseled Bruce with WM 20 the idea that we were not to let anythind even though 21-there were things that happened that we felt weren't right d

22 and that)Me were even treated harshly, he was to bring

.a 23 those things to me.

24 I counseled him to just not let anything, (andIusedthephras get to him,' qu^te, ur.qune, and I 25 Herttoge Reporting Corporation V

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think he understood that.

2 That seemed to have handled that situation, 3

because nothing like that ever arose later on af ter that'

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4 during our time down there.

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Do you have any other comments to make with G

regard to that incident?

7 A

No, I don't.

8 0

Okay.

The other issue that I would like 9

to call to your attention has to do with Mr. Caldwell's le employment inquiry round or about August / September 1987.

11 We're not exactly sure which particular month, but it was 12 somewhere in there.

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13 Mr. Caldwell had stated to us that he had 14 talked with you prior to making the phone call to Mr. Gerald is Vaughn, at which time he told you and provided you with l

16 the 10 CFR which, I guess, he had highlighted or pointed 37 out the applicable sections of the recusal issue, that is when an employee would contact an agency to discuss employment, to that there were certain steps or procedures to be taken.

f 20 Could you relate to us the information that' 21 would support or refute that contact?

22 Do you recall him coming to you and discussing 23 this, showing you the 10 CFR?

24 A

The answer is yes.

To try to answer the 2s more general question, I do remember Ron coming to me6 l

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2 of addressed that when I said that, "Sometime in late August j

3 or early September I remember Ron telling me that he ha.d.

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4 talkei with Mr. Vaughn that day about the possibility of being considered for the security manager's position at 6

STP and that Mr. Vaughn had stated it was not practical l

7 at that time.

The matter was apparently opened and closed 8

in just a few minutes.

Ron was informing me of what he l

9 had done and letting me know that the issue was closed."

le Ron did speak to me before that, because 11 he said, " Larry, I want you to take me off that job for

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12 just a short period of time until I find out if this is 13 going to go or not."

14 So it was within a very short time he came.

is back and said, "No, nothing is going to come of it and 16 the issue is closed."

i 17 "When I evaluated that incident, I determined 18 -

that ncthing had been said or implied for the future that it -

would prevent Ron from continuing to inspect bh( STP in 30 an impartial and objective manner."

And I still contend 21:

that that was the case.

22 0

I see.

When he talked to you and said,

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23 "I want you to take me off the job," did you say from a 24 management's perspective or position, "Okay, I recuse you

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of your duties," or, "I relieve you of those responsibilities.

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Go with my blessing," or anything to that?

Did you say --

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I said "yes" to him.

Excuse me, I didn't 3

mean to interrupt you.

4 0

That's okay.

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,A I said "yes" to him.

I didn't say, "I recuse 6

you."

I don't even use that word a lot.

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Okay.

3 A

But I did say, "Yes, that's accepted.

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9 all right with me.

Go ahead."

And then I said to him, 10 "Just let me know what comes out of this."

II And as I'll say again, the issue was opened l

12 and closed in a very short time.

13 0

Okay, and I would like you to also address 14 the Memo to Region IV File that you were asked to submit

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is for Mr. Bangert for the record.

l 16 A

Yes.

17 0

Which leads to some type of discrepancy is with regard to what took place, the chicken or the egg.

19 Coulc' you address that?

ao A

That's right.

The timing was wrong on that, 21 and in fact, I had forgotten.

I had forgotten that Ron 22 had come to me and said that, thqgfhe had brought it to 23.

my attention and I had said "yes," because when I put that memo to file on February 10th, I sort of implied that Ron 24 25 told me after the fact.

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That was not true and I was wrong.

I was 1

mistaken, because it was opened and closed so quickly.

3 When I reached back in my memory to try to remember it,,,

I will admit I didn't think it was a big deal-at the time 4

8 and I still don't.

But he had reminded me, "Yes, Larry, I did 6

7 talk to you."

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And I says, " Oh, ye s, I remembe r that, "

because at the time I said, "You know, Ron, I don't think 9

10 that's a good idea."

I said, "Ron, you don't have a chance, 18 You don't have one in a million."

And Ron said, "Well, I know that, but it's 12 13 at least worth a try."

14 I said, "All right, I understand."

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IS I was prepared to take him off the job if 16 he came back to me and said, "I'm not going to go ahead 17 formally with this job inquiry," but it was dead before 18 it ever got out of the starting block.

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But you had given him permission --

30 A

To make that call.

21 0

-- to make that call?

Y ' and in a sense he was theoretically

Yeah, 22 A

23 off the job for about 15 minutes to a half an hour.

24 MS. ROWE:

I have no further questions.

25 THE WITNESS:

I'd just like to add st

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MS. ROWE Sure.

3 THE WITNESS:

one of the things that kind _

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.sJ of helps clarify a little of this for me is Announcement j

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25, dated February 3rd,1988, particularly regarding 6

information regarding conflicts of interest.

It helps 7

you understand it.

8 This was after the fact, but issues have been raised about --

Hi MS. ROWE Excuse me.

Is this February 11 28th, 19887 12 THE WITNESS:

'88, the notice came out.

13 So this is after the fact, but this idea of when-a person should be taken of f the job or not, or something like that*n okbuuk, 14 is one example that the lawyers gave said that whi 16 theyxasked about:

"She wished to negotiate for employment 17 with an NRC licensee.

We advised the employee that once is she..."

It happened to be a she.

"... submits a resume to the utility, she is precluded from working on matters le 20 for the NRC affecting that licensee.

If negotiations ended c

21 unsuccessfully, generally she could resume working on matters 22 affecting that company."

One of the key things here is that I didn't 23 even consider taking Ron of f that STP job, because to me 24 he was not even in an employment negotiation mode with 2/

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that short phone call.

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2 He was just making an inquiry to determine

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if it was even worth his while to try.

So although he **-

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was off the job for that 15 minutes, I didn't consider in any way taking him off later just because he had made l

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that phone call, because I felt that it was an open-shut 7

case without any real lasting impa.ct on his ability to 8

inspect at STP.

9 I think that Announcement 25 supports that i

le position.

Il MS. ROWE I see.

I would just like to 12 comment on that, if I may.

13 Mr. Caldwell told us that he quoted a figure, i

14 a salary figure, to Mr. Vaughn at that time, which Mr.

15 Vaughn responded, "That figure is too high."

16 That would lend some credence to what you i

17 have said.

However, that gets into discussions of negotiation

-18 stage, when you start talking salary quotations and that I,

type of thing.-

2e I understand the conversation may have taken 21 place in a matter of five minutes, five or fifteen minutes, 22 whatever.

However, that lands itself more to not so much 23 feeling out the utility.

24 It's actually saying, "If you want me, this 2s is it.

This is how much I will accept," to which Mr. Caldwell Heritoge Reporting Corporation

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l also told us he res anded, "Well, I won't accept anything e

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2 less."

3 But your point is well taken and I will **

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look at that.

I think I do have that.

5 Any other comments?

6 THE WITNESS:

None.

7 MS. ROWE Thank you very much.

That concludes 4

the interview.

9 (Whereupon, at 10:36 a.m.,

the interview 10 ceased.)

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14 15 16 17 18 19 20 28 22 23 24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporation

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CERTIFICATE 2

3 I hereby certify that this is the transcript s

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4 of the interview held before the U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION on November 10, 1988, Interview of LAWRENCE YANDELL, 6

and that this is a full and correct transcription of the 7

proceedings.

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Gay E./Denton 10 Certified Shorthand Reporter Certification No. 3772 Il-Certificate Expires 12-31-90 12 Heritage Reporting Corporation 13

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.s 23 24 25 Herttoge Reporting Corporation

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