ML20106G671
| ML20106G671 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Comanche Peak  |
| Issue date: | 01/09/1984 |
| From: | Brandt C EBASCO SERVICES, INC. |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20106G461 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 8410310284 | |
| Download: ML20106G671 (77) | |
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2 ' In the Matter of: I I
,[- I 3 I!:VESTIGATION OF TE P.M I N A TI O N I T MR. WILLIAM D L' Nil A M I
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8 ORAL TES TIM ONY OF C. THOMAS E R A:: D T., a 9 witness produced pu rs u an t to subpoena, taken on the to 9th day of January 1984, commencing at the hour of 33 9:16 o ' c lock A . M. , ' be f o re Mary L. B agby , a Notary 12 Public in and for the state of Te x a s , at the offices 13 of the Nucle ar Regulatory Commission, loca.ed at 34 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Sui te 835, in the Ci ty of 15 Arlington, Coun ty of Ta r r an t , State of Texas.
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22-23 8410310284 840726 24 PDR ADOCK 05000445 G PDR 25 Mary L. Bagby (512) 267-2838 EXHIBIT O
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t- APPEARANCES:
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2 FOR THE COMMISSION: !
3 I DONALD D. DRISKILL, Investigator !
'.S. Nuclear Regulatory. Commission U
4 Office of Investigations, Field Offico 611 Ryan Plaza Drive 5 Suite .1000' .
l' Arlington, Texas 76011; and 6 i !
BROOKS . GRIFFIN,; Investigator 8
l 7 !' U.S. Nuclear {R5gulatory Commi,ssion-Office of Investigations, Field Office 8 611 Ryan Plaza Drive
. Suite 1000 9 Arlington, Texas 76011 6
10 FOR THE WITNESS:
11 BRUCE L. DOWNEY, ESQ.
Debevoise & Liberman 12 1200 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036 13 14 I
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~ . MR. DRISKILL: For the record, this' 'is . a n 9
. 2 interview of C.' Thomas'Brandt, spelled B-r-a-n-d-t, 3- who,is employed by EBASCO'at Comanche Peak Steam 4 Electric Station.
The location of this-interview ~is;the 5
6 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Office of Investigations; 7 Field Office, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 835,
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g Arlington,-Texas.
j- 9 Present at this interview are-Mr. Brandt, to Mr. Bruce'L. Downey, attorney at law, DePevoise.&
4
, 33 Liberman, Washington, D. C., Inve,stigator' Brooks 12 Griffin and Investigator Donald Dri' skill.
13 This interview i s being trans cribred by i.
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34 court reporter Mary' Bagby.
j 15 The subject matter of this interview I
j 16 concerns the termination of Mr. William Dunham at l 8 1 ;
37 Comanche Peak on approximately August 26th, 1983.
i I I We have an oath, Mr. B2andt.
. 18 Will you
.!. .f
. 4 3, please stand and raise your right hand.
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, 1 Whereupon, 2 C. THOMAS BRANDT l 3 a witness herein, having first been duly sworn and l 8
I 4 cautioned to testify the truth, the whole truth and 5 nothing but the truth, was examined and did testify 6
upcn his oath as follows: .
7 DIRCCT EXAMINATION 8 BY MR. 7RISKILL:
9 G Mr. Brandt, I would like to ask you for the record 10 is Mr. Downey acting as your personal attorney?
33 A Yes, he is.
12 O To your knowledge, Mr. Brandt, is Mr. Downey 13 representing any other parties at Comanche Peak?
34 A Yes, he is.
15 G And with that understanding you 'have no ob.jection 16 to his acting'as your personal counsel?
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17 A Absolutely not. -
1r MR. DRISKILL: Mr. Downey, could you tell i
19 us what other parties at Comanche Peak ycu l
20 do represent? l i
21 MR. DOWNEY: I personally represent Brown & ;
22 Root in the Dunham matter before the 23 Department of Labor.
24 Partners of mine and my firm 25 represent TUGCO. Other partners of mine
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~ 5 1
.- .. 1 . represent' individuals who --have been 2 interviewed by-you with reference to this
, 3 termination.
4 MR. DRISKILL: Do you foresee any potential 5 conflicts of-interest that might'arise.from 6- your_kepresenting Mr. Brandt personally, 7 and any of the other"' clients you may have
. 8 at Comanche Peak?
9 MR. DOWNED: I foresee none. I have fully to briefed Mr. Brandt concerning the repre-11 sentation that I have of other parties,.and 12 other' representations of my partners, and I 13 hope complied fully with our obligations t
14 that are in the canon of ethics.
I 15 MR. DRISKILL: I would like'to ask what you-l 16 might do if a potential conflict of interest 17 arose during the course of these questions?
g
- 18 MR. DOWNEY
- I would consult with Mr.
a j 19 Brandt and discuss the matter with him, and i
I 20 ask if he was prepared to have me-continue
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21 as his representative.
1 i 22 MR. DRISKILL: Mr. Griffin, do you have any 23 questions?
1.
24 (No response.)
25
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.,- 1 BY.MR..DRISKILL: '
2 O Mr..Brandt, if.you would, I would like for you to t
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3 explain to us what occurred, to your. knowledge, 4 with respect.to the termination of-William Dunham l
- 5 by Brown &-Root at Comanche. Peak.
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.To my firsthand knowledge, I know n o t h i ng . I.was.
i- 7 not at the site. What I know is from. hearsay,cand
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, 8 from talking to Curly Krisher, K-r-i-s-h-e-r,-and 9 Gordon Purdy,, P-u-r-d-y.
q to There was.a counseling session. arranged to ,
j ti be held on the morning of the 26th of August, which I
j-
- 12 did not occur tntil late in the~ afternoon on the i 13 26th of August, to counsel Mr. Dunham on1his 1
14 attitude, which we believed to be, need some work, l 15 quite frankly.
16 Mr. Dunham went to Mr. Purdy's office.
'. 17 Mr. Purdy handed him a counseling and guidance 1
l 18 -form, which explained the problem. Dunnam read g 19 l the report. To the best of my knowledge he told i i
[ 20 Purdy in no uncertain terms that he had had enouch 21 of this. He had his facts together. He had anothe:-
a 22 job. He didn't need this job anymore. He wasn't
{ 23 going to change, and if that's the way i t had to f
! 24 be Purdy could get his money for him.
l l 25 At that point Purdy walked him to the gate.
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, i O .And what was the basis for'the determination that 2 his attitude was not what it should be or what was 3 expected?
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4 A This has been so long ago now I'm' forgetting?datesi i,
5 but sometime early summer 1983 Texas Utilities 6
contracted a group of consultants to evaluate the 7 present coating scheme at Com'anche Peak. This grou)
, 8 of consultants included three people, that I g remember, from EBASCO; one, two, three, four.peoply
. 10 including.the.vice-president, from Gibbs & Hill; 33 three people from O. B. Cannon, including the 12 preside.nt and the vice-president of.O. B. Cannon; 13 and several site personnel.
14 A'fter several weeks of work they came up 15 with a revised specification, which included a 16 broader range of acceptable milages or graphon (sic) 1 37 thicknesses, as well as several other programmaric
- 18 changes in the coatings program.
4 8
g 19 Two of the corrosion engineers from ESASCO, i ! 20 who were probably the last ones remaining on this 8
t t l
- -s 21 group effort to tie it all together, one of them f
l 22 approached me and asked if I thought it would be 23 a good idea to call the coatings inspecters i
24 together and explain philosophically what had gone; 25 on, why it had gone on, what standard industry h
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,. ;i_ practice.was, to bothLkeep them informed firsthand 2; rather 'than finding out ~just by receiving a copy.
3- of the design change, and to soothe their nerv'es a
, 4 little bit because.they~ felt that, there was a 5 c'onstant feeling that the quality of the coating
- 6 system was being sold out to the whims df 7 can'struction, and t h e y' w e r e r. ' t involved with.
8 . construction at all. They weren't even involved with Comanche Peak site engineering; they were 9l j io outside people just. explaining the philosophy ,
n that went inro the changes.
} 12 So thgy, asked me if I thought that-would .
J ,
l i; be a ~ good idea. I said, "Yes, but I'd like to be ,
i i present when you have the meeting." As it turns 14 15 out I was tied up, but the meeting was scheduled
. 16 for 12:30 on the --
I'm speaking from memory --
1
! 17 I think the 24th of August. I was tied up with 4 !
4
] 18 nomething and couldn't attend, so I sent Curly ,
! l 19 Frisher as my representative for a meeting which
, 20 I thought should have lasted about 15 to 30 l t i
! 21 minutes, not that time is any big issue in the j i
matter, but it lasted about two hours, as I I t
22 I
i 23 recall. [
i j 24 Mr. Krisher came directly from the peeting ,
25 to my office, still had his hard hat on, and said,
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don't know what you're going to do with the
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-2 situation,,but you've got a , p r ob le m'. " I said, 3 "What's the~ problem.?"
4 .And he explained that no matter-how hard 5 that Mr. Firtel,'F-i-r-t-e-1,-and Mr. Kelley, 6' K-e-1-1-e-y, who were the-twc corrosion engineers 7 present in the meeting, .tried to keep.the. context 8' of the meeting on track as-it was originally 9 conceived Mr. Dunham seemed unable to'do so, and
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10 that he was generally a disruptive fo'rce in the 11 meeting. He kept dragging the issue off'into
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12 something else, into' matters that really Kelley 13 and Firtel had no control over. Mr. Krisher was 14 cuite adamant about his being a disruptive force.
15 And I said, "Okay. I'll look into it."
16 I later talked to Tom Kelley, who had.been 1 17 one of the corrosion engineers who presented the
. 18 meeting, and he indicated the same thing. He was j 19 I won't say appalled, but he thought his behavior i
- 20 was obnoxious and disruptive, I think are the two-I i
21 words he used. -
22 I then talked to Harry Williams, who had 23 been his immediate supervisor, and Evertt Mouser, 24 M-o-u-s-e-r, who indicated the same. :fobody led
, , 25 me to believe any different than what Mr. Krisher
.; 10 l
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.had originally-told me. Some of th'em were more- ,
.I 2 adamant about it than the others; some of them 3 used stronger language than the'others.
4 l Overall I thought, well, if Bill's going . to
, 5 be a lead inspector-he should be leading people, 6: n o.t leading them astray, and my original thought i
7 i was to give him three; days'off to' think about his S . attitude; counsel.him and give him three days off i
g about his attitude.
1 3o - That was on a Wednesday, and Thursday l
33 morning I met with my boss,'who is-Ron Tolson, and 12 described that I~ thouglit I had a problem, and what 33' I wanted to do,-and he concurred. I went on about 34 my daily business.
- 15. As a matter of practice at Comanche Peak 16 if Brown & Root employees that I supervise, if we 17 are going to counsel them we try to have 18 Mr. Gordon Purdy present in the counseli.;g session
- 19 since he is administrative 1y responsible for their l .
20 fate. Gordon seemed to be tied up most of that 21 day. I finally got ahold of him about --
oh, I 22 had left two or three messages, but he finally 23 walked into my office about 4:30 that afternoon.
24 We discussed what had gone on. He asked me what 25 I wanted to do. I said, "I want to' counsel ~him,
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3 and give him three days off to think about his
, 2 attitude." Gordon said, "All right. I don't have 3 any problem with that." but just from the look on 4 his face I could tell he was exhausted. He said, 5 " Tom., I just as soon not do it yet today. Let's 6 get together first thing in the morning."
'7 And I said, "Well, I won't be here tonorrow 8 I'm supposed to be in Dallas." I said, "Eut Curly 9 can represent me, and let's go on with it." And 10 Curly said, "How about 7:00 o' clock, Gordon?"
11 Gordon,said, "That's too early. How about 7.30."
12 And when I left the site on the 25th of
_ 13 August there was supposed to be a counseling 14 session with Mr. Krisher, Mr.,Purdy,'and Mr. Dunhas 15 at 7:30 Friday morning.
16 The next thing I heard was about 5:00 17 I
o' clock Friday afternoon sitting in Dave Chapman's I 18 office Tolson called Chapman and told Chapman that 1
l 19 Dunham had resigned. "Had quit" I think is the i
! 20 words he used.
I 2
21 That's really all I knew about it until 8
22 the Monday that I returned to work. I was in 23 Dallas until probably after 6:00 o' clock Friday
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l 24 evening on another matter.
25 That might seem like a long drawn out storyt
s.- 12 a !
i but I thought rather than --
2 Q. That's okay.
l 3 A -- letting you ask the questions I'd just go 4 through the whole thing.
5 0 With the exception of the Thursday morning, I l
6 guess, on about the 25th,.you briefed Ron Tolsor.
7 A'. Uh-huh.
8 0 --
and he concurred with your thoughts that Dunham i g should be counseled and be given three days off; 10 i's that correct?
11 A He later changed his mind, so I understand, on 12 Friday, but since the counseling session and what 13 his thought processes were, I don't know, but he 14 directed Krisher and then Purdy on Friday, but 15 since the counseling session did not taka place on 16 ,
Thursday, that they were just to counsel him, not 17 to give him three days off.
12 0 Okay. Let's go back just a few minutes. You l l
19 talked with Firtel and Kelley, i 20 A No, I talked with Kelley. l 21 0 Okay.
22 A I did not talk to Jerry Firtel. I 23 0 Okay. Did they describe --
How did they describe 24 Dunham's conduct during the course of that meeting, 25 in somewhat more detail than 3ust the fact
- 13 3
that he wac disruptive. Did they tell you exactly 2 what his complaints were, or --
3 tu No, they neve r did. I don't know, I understand 4 now second, third and f ou rth hand, what Lunhar's s specific complaints were in the meeting, but I e
don't know prior to Dunham's termination that 7 anybody ' told me what his specific complaints were.
8 Everybody -- and they might have. Keep in mind 9 we're talking five months ago. I really don't to remember, but it seems to me that ~ the general 33 attitude of everybody I talked to was that he
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12 just kept trying to drag Firtel and Kelley off 13 into an area that they really had no control over 14 or was external or extraneous to the purpose of 15 the. meeting, which in my mind anyway was tne key 16 issue. That the meeting had been called for a j 17 specific purpose. We had completely stopped r
- is production in the field to hold the meeting. We
- ig thought it was that important, because we had all c i
i 20 of the OC inspectors in it.
f 21 And the fact that here one of my two lead i -
22 inspectors was dragging the meeting off into a 23 purpose other than for what it was called, I 24 thought was counterproductive at best, as well as 4 1
25 setting an extremely bad example for everybody thad 1
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, - 14 i was thoro, and'thic 10 tho guy I havo chocon to 2 lead a group of inspectors. I hadn't chosen:
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3 l Harry Williams had chosen.
l 4
l G Were you acquainted with Dunham prior to this 5 time? -
t
. 6l .4 Yes. -
7 0 And what would be your thoughts with regard to a his, first of all, performance, and, secondly, 9 his personality and character prior to that time?
ll iolA. Performance is a big word. If you are talking it about his performance as an inspector, he was an l
I2 excellent inspector. Never had any p:oblem with l
13 him. Never.
l 14 About the only problem I ever had with him, 15 even as a lead inspector other than, ch, in the 16 final throws to where I didn't perceive that he 17 was trying to be part of the program, he was 18 trying to be part of an outside force acting on l l
19 the program, was he wouldn't come to me. He 20 ultimately did come to me with wht. his problems I l
21 l were, but I have a hard time with people working
- f 22 for me that won't come to me when they have a l 23 problem.
24 It's hard to straighten out any sub-25 ordinates problems if they are going around you
A
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. -j with thei'r problems, and up until the June meeting 2
that took place in Ron Tolson's office I had never 3 been ' approached by Du n h a m cni a ny th'in g that was
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4 hothering-him or he thought he had problems with.
5 And I told h,im about it in that meeting, you know, 6 I said, " Bill, I can't solve your problems for you 7 if you don't let me'know what they are."
8 0 I believe that you and I have discussed that g particular period of time once previously, and I-10 think if I recall correctly you told me that not 11 only Dunham but the*other people working 'for 12 Harry. Williams had been told not to come to you 13 with their problems.
14 ' A. I did not understand that prior to that time, but 15 I found out in a series of interviews that I 16 conducted after talking to Dunham and Jim tha.t j 17 that had been expressed.
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- 18 0 And as I understood it, also on your b'ehalf, that 3
l 19 you had an open-door policy, --
i l 20 A Uh-huh.
! 21 0 -- anF any employee working under you for even a
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- 22 subordinate supervisor had the right to come to 23 you with any-problems that they had; is that 24 correct?
25 A- Of course. As a matter of fact, Dunham even after 9
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, , . y cur original confrontation --'co,nfrontation is a After'our. original discussion in Tolson'sI 2 bad' word.
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3- office in-June, Dunham came'in with an inspector 4- he was..having.a problem with, Wally Elliott.
5 Elliott had a problem on an NCR disposition, on 6 . the sequence of GVents in executing the disposition 7 of the NCR, and I'm not real sure.if Bill under-stood,-either, but he wanted to come in and talk '
8 g about it.
10 So he.came down and we' sat and talked. I ti d o n .' t remember what length, maybe a half an hour, I
12 to where Bill,fglt he understood, .and I felt that i
13 Bill understood. Wally still had a problem with I
14 it, and Bill took Wally and said, " Tom, I'll
. . 15 tackle this alligator later," using as a i 16 colloquialism that he, I guess,-the way I took it 17 anyway, that he would explain it to Wally and i
- wculdn't take up anymore of my time.
is And the two ;
i 19 of them went. And Dunham seemed happy. !
i 20 At which point I thought, well, Bill at l 4
21 least understands now that he can come in with his
- 22 problems, which-I was pleased with, quite frankly.
i ,
23 0 Well, in Dunham's behalf, I guess you would say, 24 by virtue of the fact th a t he was basically told 25 by Williams or one of Williams' subordinate
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, , supervisors in May, June, someti'me in that time
. 2 frame, perhaps even prior to that, that he and t h e.l 3 ther people working as coatings inspect:rs were 4 not to come to you with their problems, Dunham 5 went to Gordon Purdy, who was the senior Brown &
6 l- R ct representative on the site."
7 A Right.
g 0 On the OA site, perhaps.
g A Uh-huh.
10 0 And explained the problem, or explained one if 33 not more problems that ~he was having to Purdy --
12 A Right.
13 0 --
which --
14 A Resulted in --
15 G -- resulted in the meeting between Dunham, yourse19 16 and Tolson.
37 A And Purdy.
, ja Q Okay, and Purdy. With respect to that particular j 19 meeting did Dunham describe what his problems e
$ 20 ** '?
1
.f 21 A I think for the record, Don, I might add one
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22 thing that might clarify it even in your c'in mind, 23 and maybe I've told you this before. That meeting 24 started out with Bill very much on the defensive, 25 and I asked him just point blank, I said, " Bill,
. - 18 o i- why do you-feel that you can't come to.me with 2 your problems?" And at that point he made no 3 mention of the fact that he had been told not"to 4 come to me, but he alluded to the fact, and it's as 5 close to a quote as I can remember, but, "After 6 all, you're the guy that fired Atchison. We don't 7 trust you." That's A-t-e-h-i'-s-o-n.
8 At which time Purdy became quite defensive, 9 and he said,- "No, Bill, let me straighten you out to right now. I am the guy that fired Atchison. Tom
-n had nothing to do with his termination. He 12 decided he couldn't use him." I came hack at 13 Bill saying, I said, " Bill, well, you know, if 14 you don't trust me, surely you trust your own l
15 brother," who was then and still is the night-16 shift lead coatings inspector, who on numerous ;
17 occasions has called me at home with problems he 18 was having. And I think in all cases I did my l t
19 best to straighten him out. On which one l 20 particular case Bill had talked to Fred over, and i
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21 Bill acknowledged the fact that I had straightened l 22 him out even thoogh that Harry Williams had i 23 directed him otherwise, that Harry had directed l 24 them in an arrant direction, th a t I had
- 25 straightened Fred out, and Bill acknowledged that l l L -i
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. 19 j l fact. He.gave me the impression anyway that 2 probably when he thought about it maybe he should 3 have come toHme with his problems.
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4 His problems, to answer your. question, that 5 he expressed in tha~t meeting, there was a couple 6 of specific issues,-but basicallp he was speaking
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7 in generalities and became increasingly frustrated g when~ he'd bring I don't want to use the term
.g babbling,. but he was bouncing from subject to io subject in real' general terms, and we kept asking ij him, " Bill, could you give us some specifics on 12 what you are unhappy with?" He was complaining-13 about the adequacy of the program, and at'one 14 point I handed him the Procedures Manual. I said, 15 "Well, Bill, could you show me, you know, 16 where your problem.is?" And he was unable.
37 He didn't like the program. He thought I
- ; is the program was inadequate, I think would be a a
- 19 general way of describing his attitude. And he 29 didn't like' Harry Williams. That came through
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f 21 loud and clear. He felt that Harry had probably i-
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22 browbeat him, I think, and told me to, I think his 23 statement was, you know, " Talk to these other
[ 24 people. They'll confirm what I'm telling.you."
25 And I did. I talked to, the best I recall,
.. 20 a
i ten or twelve, which you and I have discussed' 2
previ usly. And several things came through loud 3 and clear in'that series of interviews, that they 4 didn't feel-Harry was,probably the predominant 5 of which was they didn't feel' Harry was strong enough to handle construction. Harry was being. '
6 7 run over by construction, in particular Junior 8 Haley, who was at that time the coating superin-g tendent. H-a-l-e-y.
10 They felt that Harry didn't support them 33 properly. But the only issue that came out of 12 that -- excuse me, two issues.
One, which we have 13 already discussed, which could have been taken as 14 I guess intimidation -- I'm sureEthat it was not 15 intended as such -- was an incident in the pump 16 skimmer room, the reactor, over some concrete 37 coatings. Harry made the statement, -purportedly
- j. is made the statement that if this is the way you ig are going to inspect I'm going to come behind-you 20 with a magnifying glass, and if you can't get a 21 hundred percent of what you're supposed to get, 22 I'm going to pull your certs. It doesn't sound
. 23 like Harry Williams to me, but he admitted
- 24 making the statement. I'm sure it was in a f i't 25 of frustration, as much as anything.
l
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._ - 2 1 3 'That was one. issue. I was aware of there 2 had been an incident in the pump skimmer room 3 because I saw the coatings in the pump skimmer 4 room, but it wasn't until these series of 5 interviews that I had learned what Williams had
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6 said.
7 And the second incident that came out that 8 could be potentiall taken, I guess, as intimidatio g or harassment., was a female inspector by the name go of Joy Underwood, U-n-d-e-r-w-o-o-d, complained gj that Harry had told her not to go to the bathroom.
12 l in the administration building. And given.the 13 substance of the complaint, I didn't put too much 14 weight in it. Administrative things like that I 15 think certainly are within Mr. Williams' right.
16 But nobody --
It.was evident that most of a
j 17 them didn't like Harrv. Most of them felt that a
is he wasn't really doing his job as a'QC
.: ig superviser supporting them, but the fact that he i
s 20 was browbeating th e m , o r harassing them, or I ,
21 in timi da ting them, that didn't really come -
s l
22 through as a result of any of this.
l 23 g Did Dunham tell you in the meeting in June that 24 he felt he was being harassed, or he or any of i-25 the other coatings inspectors were being harassed 9
7,_., .v_ ~ . . _ - _ . , , . , . , - . -, _ . , , _ . . . _ . . _ _ ,
_ 22 i or being intimidated by Williams?
2 .A He told me,- the only specific incident that he I 3 talked about that I remember, once again, that he 4 felt he had been harassed was not by williams but 5 was by another night shift s up e r vi s o.r , QC 6
supervisor by the name of Eddie Holland.,
7 H-o-1-1-a-n-d, over the use of what we call a 8 nickel test, which is using the edge of a nickel 9 to determine pri.mer cure.
10 That Eddie-grabbed his arm in front of the 11 craft and said, "You're rubbing that too hard,"
4 12 ,
and said, "This is how I want you to do it." And 13 Bill thought that was harassment.
14 There was one instance that he brought up 15 that he'd been chewed out in front of the craft 16 by Mr. Williams that I believe Cory Allen was 17 supposed to substantiate, and Cory said he didn't 18 remember it. It was Cory or somebody else. But
, 19 Bill made the statement, "And you can check with 20 so and so to verify that." I bel $ eve it was Cory,
. 21 but at any rate Cory didn't substantiate it.
22 Even given the allegation that he had been I 23 chewed out in front of the craft, although probably l
24 not a proper thing to do, I don't necessarily l
l l 25 think that's harassment, whether he did it or not, l
t i l e a <n--, a- w ---s y. n g m- s- ,anw, - ,,e -~m- -~r- .----,,-,,rgg y - ,,--
_, 23. ,
i which1I.was" unable to substantiate. There's a 2
way to counsel people on their wrongdoings.and a-3 way n t to, and if he did.it I would have talked 4 to Harry and said, " Hey, Harry, let's not be chew-3 ing the inspectors out in front of the craft."
6 O With respect to his grievances, I guess you would 7
say, regarding Williams, aside from an-j personality, 8
conflict, harassment, intimidation, or whatever, 9 or however you want to describe it, did he ever io bring to your attention the fact that he didn't 11 feel Williams was certified to supervise --
12 A No, that issue never came up.
13 0 --
coatings inspectors?
14 .A. No.
15 O. In the --
16 A Certified or qualified, Don? j
- 37 0 Certified or qualified.
- 18 A He didn't believe he was qualified; he made that j ig quite evident. But he never questioned Harry's certification. As a matter of fact, Ron Tolson ft 20 21 even used, I believe, that statement in the June l
22 ,
meeting. H e sa i d , " Bill, what this seems to boil 23 down to is you don't like Harry Williams." And 24 Bill said, "That's right."
25 And Tolson said, "Well, obviously, we have
- - x .
m 1. 24 ,
3
- a. difference of opinion." ~I think it was the'end' 2
f that dis cus sio ns ,they ' both realized that there
~ 3 was no sense in really arguing that specific 4
I issue. If there were specific charges we made it 5
1, clear that we'd investigate them.
- 6. But as the meeting rolled on, and I don't 7 remember'how long the meeting lasted, I guess 8 'l maybe an hour, Bill became more and more l
~
9 frustrated as we asked for spec.ifics, you know, 10 " Bill, could you be specifi.c?" And all he was ij able to do was speak in --
possibly it was due
, _.12 to, it was f r u s t r a,t i o n . He was unhappy. He was 13 probably uncomfortable sitting in Tolson's office, 14 and maybe just wasn't thinking clearly. But he 15 could not come up with any real specific issues of.
16 substance, anyway.
17 0 Well, I guess you are aware that he described that 18 meeting, or the way the questions were asked,
, 19 offhand he described Tolson and your questioning 20 of him as an interrogation-type --
21 A Well, --
22 0 --
interview, rather than --
l 23 A Yeah, I understand that. It surprised me, to say 24 the least, because Bill is kind of a quiet guy, l
25 but I'd never really had any super hard time-
.=t-
, i talking ^to him. We had.had numerous group l
2 meetings where Bill and I would talk not,about 1 3
anything, you know, not in any great length over 4 anything, but he'd at least let me know what he 5
was thinking. So, really, you know, walking to 6
T lson's office he felt very uncemfhrtable in the
, situation, I could tell 8
He came into the office and immediately 9
sat down, and leaned back on his chair and spread to hi.s arms out like this (indicating), 1.i k e , _you
, 33 know, what do.you guys want to know. Tolson was 12 probably a little bit defensive at the start of 13 the meeting. So you've got two defensive forces, 14 you know, going like.this (indicating), until you 15 can get down and actually talk about something. ,
16 I didn't take it as interrogating. I was j 37 sitting in the corner of-the room just asking, you d
, 3g know,. Bill, because we are sitting three super-
- ig visors or managers are sitting there talking to
! 20 him, and really only one of us is familiar with 21 the intimate details of the program, or the i
I 22 technical expertise in the area in which he's 23 talking about. And I was trying to, you know, 24 get some specifics f rom him , " Bill, what's your i
25 problem? What's wrong with this? What's wrong L
f
. - . + --
i ;- 2 6
.! 1 1 with using the' nickel test?"
2- And he was-unable to come up with anything 3 specific. But I did assure him that I would 4 _ interview other-i.nspectors and see what their-
, 5 concerns were.
~
6 0 I believe in'his statement that he provided to 7 the Department of Labor he said'that one of the 8 first cuestions that Tolson asked him was some- ,
9 thing to the effect of "What are these statements 10 you've made about intimidation," or being 11- intimidated, or something.
12 A I believe.the, statement, and I might be wrong, and 13 I don't mean to be crude, but I think quoted in 14 Dunham's complaint is Tolson started the meeting 15 with " Boy, what's all this bullshit about 16 harassment," .o r intimidation. I realize that's 17 Dunham's statement. It's unlike Tolson. ,
, 3
. 18 I distinctly remember that he did not say 19 " boy" or indicate " bullshit about harassment,"
20 or " intimidation." I believe what he said was, 21 " Bill, what's this," you know, "what's your
! 22 goncerns about harassment and intimidation?"
t 23 Which may be a very frank way of starting a 24 discussion, but nonetheless it's how it happened.
[ 25 But he never used the term " boy" as far as trying i
l i.
l- .
l
a u.+., ;
, to be demeaning or anything.
2 O Okay. So he had said something to Gordon Purdy in 3 their, meeting prior to this --
4 A I assume'from the way the meeting started. I'm 5i .not sure whether he even used the words intimidati@
6 or harassment. -
7 The thing I remember mos t was Dunham had a ,
told Purdy he was going to the Commission, you e know, if he couldn't get a resolutation he was 10 going to the Commission. At which time eithe~r 11 'Tolson, myself, or both explained to Dunham, you 12 know, we think you owe it to us to let us know-13 what your problems are. And if you want to go
, , 14 to the Commission, I'll take you down there,. and 15 I'll go down and introduce you to Taylor. It's 16 no big deal. You can have your say.
! 17 As a matter of fact, I remember Tolson
- 18 saying, "If you're using that as a threat," he a
i 19 said, "I think you're the one that's guilty of i
l 20 intimidation. You're trying to intimidate me."
- 21 It's no big deal. Let's talk about four concerns, 22 if we can't solve them, you know, we'll take you j 23 to see Taylor. Which I thought even locking at 24 it as an outsider should have put Dunham a little l
25 more at ease than he was', because it was fairly y -- -
- -~r -
- 28 J .'1 I . a p p a r e n't a t' t h'a t point none'of us hcd any 2' concerns-about him going to the commission.
3 O I understand'thatiseveral actions _were taken, L
+
4- though, as a result.of your interview of.Tolson 5 on that particular occasion, as we have already --
,6 A -Interview of Tolson? - ,
7 0 I'm sorry, Dunham. As we have-aiready established 8 you interviewed the other coatings inspectors --
a i 9 A The majority of them. I didn't interview all of
- 10 them.
11 0 -- and found that others d'id have_a' problem, be 12 it factual or perceived, with Harry Williams, t
13 A Yeah,-but the only thing I'd like to clarify 4
}
14 there, Don, is the thing that came through loud 15 and-clear is they didn't think Harry was a good
. 16 supervisor. 'They didn't like him personally.
! 17 Some of them, even though they didn'* --
I
! I I just jotted 18 I've got notes from the interview. !
19 down things real briefly. But some of them, even 1
20 though they didn't think he was --
they thought :
l l 21 he was very poor as a supervisor, liked him
- 22 personally. The statement I remember distinctly, l 23 one person making the statement, " Harry's doing 1
i 24- the.best he can. -He's trying, you know, as hard i
l 25 as he can."
b
.-29 i The point I'm trying.to make.is even 2 though the majority of them said they had problems 3 with Harry, they didn't think he was supporting 4- them, they didn't like him, they felt the craft 5 was running over him, other than ,the one complaint 6 by Ms. Underwood about using the bathroom in the 7 Administration Building, nobody claimed that 8 Harry had harassed or intimidated them, which was g really my bottom line concern. You-know, is 10 Harry browbeating ~these people. You know, tellin'g ij them, "You'd better accept this,"'or "you'd better 12 accept 't h a t . " That didn't gome through at all.
13 0 Okay. In addition to the interviews that you 14 conducted I understand that Bob Scott interviewed 15 some people, or conducted an investigation of his 16 own, or reinterviewed Dunham at a'later time in
. 17 order to --
1 S
18 A Dunham's the only one I know of that he inter- ,
l
\
j 19 viewed. I have not seen -- He wrote like a one-a 2
1 20 page report on his interview to Tolson. I have a
l 3
- e 23 not seen that, but I know just from talking to -
. ?.
( 22 Bobby briefly there was nothing really more that 4
[
r 23 came out of his interview with Dunham than what [
i,
! 24 I already knew, and the purpose -- I won't second i
i.
( ; - 25 guess Tolson. But the reason I think Tolson had t
e- H + <---o-- t-t--- - t e~ u i-W2 w m, w w m +wn- m
~'
-.- 30 :
i ' Bobby in.terview Dunham again was to put it in a 2 lower key type'of mode to where if Dunham's i 3 inability to come up with specifics in the 4 original 4 meeting with Tolson, Purdy and I, was 5 due to his emotional state, that h,e was upset, 6 you know, .being there., he felt he was bei ng 7 ,
interrogated I think was the term you used 8 before, that he could sit in a lower key setting 9 and describe to Bobby, who neither knew Dunham 10 nor was responsible for him, nor those coatings, 11 it was just l'i k e. a n outsider coming in and 12 investigating, he could explain to Bobby in a
! 13 calm setting, and Bobby could pass it on to people 14 that could look.into it and do something about i
i 15 it.
16 O Okay. Just to digress a moment. You have i 17 attended meetings on other occasions at wh!.ch l
18 Dunham was present and had talked to him on -
19 occasions prior to this.
20 A Uh-huh.
i 21 O With that-in mind, and'with this June incident 22 .with Dunham in mind, did it come as a surprise 23 to you that Dunham's demeanor in the August 24th
. 24 meeting was what was reported to you?
25 A I don't know that I really ever thought about it, e
l
, ... - 31 ~
3 Don. People are strange, especially people that
. 2 are working.under pressure in superviso'ry-3 positions. To give you an idea, Dunham seemed,
~
4 just-to go a step further, Dunham, as'I said, 5 appeared upset with the program in this June 6 meeting, but yet sever'al weeks 1ater he came in
^
7' with Elliott, as_I have' earlier described, and 8 seemed to be acting in a very calm, very
. g~ confident fashion.
to You know, " Hey, Tom, this is my inspecter.
11 He's got a problem with this. I don't really
?
12 understand it." -I explained it ~ to the extent that 13 Dunham understood it, and he took his inspector I 14 and said, "I'll explain it to him later." Which 1 15 just is an example, I guess, of good. days anc 16 bad days for anybody. I certainly have them,
~
- i 17 and I feel anybody else does.
. 18 I could see -- I can understand how it j 19 can happen. I don't know that I even thought about i
20 previous performance. But for something we were l
- -!. s l 21 doing, I won't use the word courtesy but certainly
[
i 22 as a concession to_ twenty coatings we could have
! 23 taken a hard line and said this is the program, 24 you know. Get after it. We were giving them the
.r 25 opportunity to talk to the people that developed e
~32 4
. i_ .the program, and~ explain from'an industry practico. ,
2 Show them the ASTM Standards that allowed them.to 3 ' broaden the scope of dry film thickness ranges.
l 4: It was in restrospect I think a concerted effort l 5 on our part to keep them firsthand apprised of 6 what we were really doing. Dunham'was 7ot only 7 not cooperative, you know, with our: effort of 8 trying to keep him and his inspectors, and other
. 9 inspectors, apprised of what we were doing from 10 a management standpoint. He was doing his best ,
11 to be counterproductive. And I didnt appreciate 12 that. ,
G 13 0 Going back, you said that you talked to Tom Kelley.
14 A Uh-huh.
15 - G After that particular meeting do you recall did.
16 he~in any way. recommend what you should do?
17 A Tom Kelley made a statement, which I think you i
18 know what the statement is or you wouldn't ask i 19 the question, but Kelley made a statement more i
20 in passing than anything. Kelley was pretty upset ,
21 about the whole thing. Kelley said -- I asked
- 22 Kelley what he'd do,-not for any reasons other 23 than feeling him out. Not that I needed Kelley's 24 advice, or I reported to Kelley, or anything, 25 because I don't and proba~bly never will. Kelley j
1
r _.
'U 1=33 1 lmade the. statement, "It'd.'take me ex-ctly 48 hour5.555556e-4 days <br />0.0133 hours <br />7.936508e-5 weeks <br />1.8264e-5 months <br />s:
. . 2 to get rid of him." I said, " ll o w ' s that?"
3 'He said,."Well, i,t'd take me 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to
~
4 figu're 'out-what.the site's policy was for 5 terminating-someonei.and 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> to get i,t d o'n e . "-
6 .
And I said, "Well, Kelley, I d on" t- know t h a' t -
7 .that's necessary."-That was' pretty much the end of..
s 81 the discussion. It was toward the tail end of-9 the discussion that we were having anyway; he was-10 exp'laining to'me why he was upset over Dunham's j' 11 behaviour.
12 G Did that comment in any way have any --
13 A Absolutely not. If it had had any affect,-I would 4
14 have terminated Dunham on Wednesday afternoon.
15 O Okay.
16 A You know, if what I needed was Kelley's permissionL
- i2 17 or Kelley's advice to terminate someone. That was
{ . 18 probably toward 4:30 on Wednesday' afternoon.
j 19 O Okty. We'll go on to I guess the-afternoon of the I. i 1
l 20 26th, which was a Friday, Dunham was terminated.
- e i ! 21' A Uh-huh. -
i
- 22 O And as you have already said the word came to you j 23 in Dallas that he had resigned or had quit.
l l 24 A. Uh' huh.
25 0 And as I understand it,'the next week -- well, f
i-
.. . -, - _ - , _ . , _ . , - - , . . - . _ . , . _ , . _ . ,_..,,~._..-...,..r,,, ._ . - , _ _ , , _ _ _
= 34
-j. .c p p a r e.n t l y ', o n that particular. occasion personnel 2 in the c o a'ti ng s group were told that he had 3- -
resigned.
4~ A I heard that but I heard it only as r$mor. I 5 don't re ally even know where the rumor came f rem.-
6 I will say, you'know, for the record, given 7 the circumstances, if the ' circumstances which I
, 8 have been explained or that have been explained to g me that occurred in Purdy's office, when somebody 10 says "Get my' money," that's a resignation, and l
33 that's what happened, you know. So as of today I 12 would still have to say Bill Dunham resigned.
13 0 As I --
i 14 A If you walked up to her and said "I'm not going 15 to do this, Dick'. If I've got to do this, g'e t 16 my money." Are you being terminated or are you 17 resigning?
18 0 I guess it depends on his response, but --
a 19 A No, if he obliges you and says, "Okay, Don. We'll 20 process you out." Did he te rmin ate you or did 21 you resign? For my money, you resigned.
22 And that's, from what was explained to me, 23 what happened in Purdy's office. Purdy tried to 24 calm him down, without success, and, you know, 25 if I walked into either my boss from Texas 1
1
.=as
/
i Utilities, or.my boss in New York for EBASCO, and, 2 on something they were trying to explain to me, 3 and said "To hell with you, I'm r.ot going to 4 listen to you. If that's'got to be the way,it is, 5 get my money." I wouldn't do that with Texas 6
. Utilities, you.know, I'd just 'say " Process me 7 out. I "l l go back to New York." To me.that's 8 not a termination. That's a resignation. And 9 that's what I was told it was.
10 0 I would assume, and based on the fact that I've 11' talked with Dunham,'the' statements he made were 12 based o'n his opinion regarding the basis for the 13 meeting. He felt like the-counseling session was 14 not justified.
15 MR. DOWNEY: You know, Tom doesn't know 16 what Dunham thinks.
17 MR. DRISKILL: He asked me a question and
. 18 so I wa just responding to it.
l j 19 THE WITNESS: Let's go a step further, i
20 Don. I f -- Let's just use you as an exampi l
e I again. Dick comes in and says, " Don,.I 21
. I. .
22 think I've got a problem with you. Let's 23 talk about it." And you said, " Dick, I'm l
l 24 not going to talk. There's nothing to talk l
25 about. If that's the way it's got to be, l
I L
'._ 36
, got'my money." Now, maybe that's closer
-2 to being the actual perspective of what t
3 happened. ,
4 From what I understand, I have not 5- talked to Dunham, but from I understand 6 Dunham thought the counseling se,ssion was 7 'uncalled for. B u t' , still, he was talking 8 to his ultimate administrative manager on g the site for Brown & Root, and as a 10 ' Brown &' Root employee I think he owed 11 I
him the professional courtesy of listening 12 to wha.t he had to say; even if he thought 13 he was crazy.
14 BY MR. DRISKILL:
15 0 Well, what he had to say was written on a piece 16 of paper and laid in-front of him. I'm not trying 17 to defend the man. I'm just saying --
18 A. No, I --
i 19 MR. DOWNEY: I think we ought to just 20 continue with the interview, and ask Tom i 21 what he knows. This speculation about
(
, 22 what happened in a meeting where nobody 1
J
! 23 was is not very practical.
l l . 24 THE WITNESS: As far as I am concerned l
25 he resigned.
t I .-
l l
- 27 2 7-1 MR. DRISKILL: Okay. .
2 THE WITNESS: From what I know. I have not
. 3 talked to Purdy at any great length about 4 what happened. I have.not talked to 5 -Krisher at any great length. I have seen 6
. statements that Krisher and Mouser ma'de 7 Mo'n d ay a f t e'r the incident, wh'ich I have a 8 copy of. They are signed, written state-9 ments. I have seen the termination sheet, to which Purdy signed, and Dunham wrote an 11 obsce.nity on, as far as what he thought of 12 it. And nothing I've seen leads me to 13 believe that anything cther than the fact 14 he resigned. The State of Texas thinks he 15 resigned.
16 MR. DRISKILL: That's the --
[
i 17 THE WITNESS: The unemployment arena. He
. 18 was denied unemployment even though l 19 Erown & Root did not fight it, because the i
l 20 State of Texas determined he resigned.
)
- 21 BY MR. 3RISKILL
. -j 22 0 Okay. I understand that in the week following, I 23 or in the next couple of weeks following his l
24 termination or resignation, that he was offered 25 the job back, or offered'his job back.
1
,r-r-- ,---3 y ,
.~38 4
- ) M R . i D O W N E Y,
- I object to'that question.
2' Tom doe'sn't know anything about that. He's 3 notEresponsible f or. the 'j ob of f e r , not 4 ' responsible for the matters that led up 5 to that, and --
6 MR. DRISKILL: Whether he's responsibfe for 7 it or not, I'm asking him what his knowledge 8 is of that.
9 THE WITNESS: Firsthand, none.
. 10 BY MR. DRISKILL:
1 11 0 Secondhand? i 12 A Secondhand. This is probably a moot p o i n't . I 13 could probably argue that it wasn't even second-14 hand. It's probably third hand or even rumor.
15 Yeah, I understand he was offered his job i 16 back.
17 % May I ask where you got that information second, 18 third, or whatever hand?
19 A I was told by Ron Tolson.
20 4 Did he tell you why?
21 A No.
22 G Were you told before the offer was made, or after 23 the offer was made?
24 A After the offer was made, at which point I told 25 Mr. Tolson it was obvious that Texas Utilities no
. ~
u4:s1
, , , .,_ long,erLneeded my services. That's the way it had 2
to be. And got up and walked out of his office.
.uc came chasing'me down the hall. " Tom s o t't l e q 4
down." I'said,- "This is sad."
,5 O Did he telltyou whose decision it was? l A I don't think he knew'at the tims. I'm not sure.
6 i
I know now. I'm not sure'I even care, b u't I was
~
7 8
aggravated. When somebody comes in and tells you g to'put your counseling report essentially where f
to the sun don't- shin'e, a'n d you can't ' ire that man 33 or at least oblige him when he-asks for his money,
?
12 to provide it in a timely basis, I think we've 33 reached a sad state.
g MR. DRISKILL: Let's ge off the' record for f
a few minutes, 15 16 .(Discussion off the record.)
37 MR.'DRISKILL: Back on the record,~please.
i
- gg SY MR. DRISKILL
- i i
.E l
39 0 Tom, did you ever see the counseling report that
! 20 was given to Dunham en the day he was terminated?
21 A Did I t .e it_on that day, or have I seen it sin.ce?
I 22 Q Did you see it prior to --
I 23 A No.
24 0 -- the counseling meeting, or subsequent to? i f
- -25 A I've seen it subsequent to, i
F
..,v ---
e i 4 And was that the form on which he, wrote the 2
obscenity?
~.
- 3. A .Yes. No. I don't beli' eve so.
4 The counseling form, if you have both of 5 them I could tell. There.'s a. counseling form 6_l that was prepared by Krisher and Purdy, and then 7 there's a' termination form that's a pe rs onnel, 8 administrative type thing. I believe the 9 obscenitywas written on the termination form.
10 @. Okay. I believe you are correct. But there was ii a counseling-form prepared.
12 A Yes,,I've see.n both of them.
13 G And was that the formal one-page sheet --
14 A Yes.
15 0 --
counseling form.
16 A Yes.
17 @ At any time to your knowledge was a three part 18 memo used to draft the --
19 A No.
20 0 --
text of the counseling form?
21 A As a matter of fact, I have a copy of the draft 22 .and it's not a three part memo. It's a plain 23 white sheet of typewriter paper that Mr. Krisher l
. 24 had my secretary prepare.
25 4 Do you have any knowledge that Dunham ever talked
- , .-- . - - - - - . ,= - - -
- 41 i to Cu rly Krisher abou t his pe rsonali ty p roblems
. 2 wi th Harry Williams?
3 A. HN o .
4 0 or th a t Curly conducted some sort of inves tigation.
5 or incuiries r e l'a tin g to'Dunham's complaint .to him 6 . that he was being harassed, and 'tha t Williams wis 7 not particularly we ll liked by coatings QC 8 personnel?
g A I knew that Curly was looking in to tha t fact, that 10 he wasn't liked by the coatings inspection
-11 personnel, b'u t I didn't know that it was a t 12 Dunham's request or Dunham's c once rn . I knew'in 13 a general sort of way that he was doing it.
34 0 Okay. I v e go t here a report or a le t te r which 15 was sent to John Collins, the Regional 16 Administrator for NRC.
- 37 A Uh-huh.
- 18 % It came from Mr. Gary, vice-president of TUGCO.
I j ig And attached to this le tter is a memo to Dave
! 20 Chapman. And it has to do with investigation I 21 in to allegations made by William A. Dunham, and-i
~
22 concerns expressed relating to protective coatings 23 Have you ever seen tha t?
24 A Who is it from?
25 4 I believe i t's --
r .-*z -
- 3 - , MR. DOWNEY
- Why don' t you let him review 2 i t.
3 M !i . DR1 SKILL: Yes. I t's trom Tony Vega.
4 MR. DOWNEY: Let him see i t. -
5 (Document handed to witness . )
6 THE WITNESS : I can tell you right now I.'ve 7 neve r seen the le t ter . If'you would like 8 for me to read it, I can comment on it.
9 MR. DRISKILL: No. I just had a couple of to questions I wan ted to ask you about the i3 letter and see if you have any knowledge 12 ab o u t ,i t .
'13 THE WITNESS: I've never seen the le tte r.
14 I might have.... I might be able to 15 answer your question. I knew Vega did an 16 investigation. I've never seen ei th e r a 17 copy of his report or that letter, l
18 Do you want me to take the time to I 19 read it?
i 20 MR. DRISKILL: I just have a couple of
! 21 ques tions off of i t. Th e re 's a lot of
. 22 .
writing the re and very little th a t I'm 1
23 in te r e s te d in. Most of it has to do with 4
24 technical stuff, which first of all I don't 25 know ve ry much about, and, second of all, e
0
g
~43 i which I don't know tha t I have that much 2 concern with.
3 MR. DRISKILL: I'll Just read part of this 4 to ycu, the part that I've got a couple of 5 questions about.
6 MR. DOWNEY: T.5is is from Mr. Vega's repor%
s 7 MR. DRISKILL: Yes, 'from Mr. Vega's repert, 8 and has to do wi th Page B-6.
9 "In condu cting the inve s tiga tion to questions we re f o rmula ted so as to attach it the broadest in te rp re ta tion to harassment, 12 intimidation and thre ats . In addition , the 13 phrases ' undue p res sure ' and ' coercion' 14 were introduced into the investigation 15 questions to solicit an even broader range 16 of input from the inspectors. The results 17 are summarized as follows:
}
t 18 "(A) One recurring general complain-4 19 was voiced involving the previous coatings
! 20 QC supervisor, Harry Williams, and one lead 23 coatings QC inspector, Bob Wallace. Seither i
22 pe rson is employed by CPSES at the present.
23 Several specific instances of this general 24 complaint were provided. One instance was 25 mentioned by several inspectors where they (
- 1
~
1
.3- 44
, admonished on the subject.of' nit-picking 2
during the meeting called by Mr. Williams." _
DY MR. D R IS l* I L L :
3 4 0 .I believe tha t you said that you had already 5 during the course of you r discussions with these 6
vari us people heard the same thing or-words --
7 A Uh-huh.
8 g Or they told you about the same instance, at least 9- one instance where this was --
10 A I don't know that the term " nit-picking'" was ij used in the discussion I heard, but I know what 12 you're talking about. ,
13 g Okay. Then there's on Page B-9, there's a 34 discussion of p revious management investigations.
15 It says, "One of the investigations was conducted 16 by Mr. Brandt. This investigation was conducted 17 during the first week of July 1983. Mr. Brandt l
18 interviewed 11 coatings inspectors, including. two !
t 19 that Mr. Dunham stated could substantiate his !
20 allegations. Mr. Dunha.' made two allegations.
21 The first allegation, that M r '. Williams had 1 ,,
22 ' publicly reprimanded Mr. Dunham was not t
4 23 substantiated.
5 24 A Uh-huh.
25 g was that your finding, that --
~
, 3 A. No. Th'a t ' s what I discussed earlier.
2 0 Okay. The second allegation that Mr. Williams, 3 who was not a certified inspector had instructed 4 Dunham on how to perform a n'ickel test was 5 substantiated.
6 A I said earlier th a't it was Eddie Holland, but 7
maybe it was both of them, in retrospect. The 8 nickel test was an item of concern 'y r Dunham.
g G Were you aware or.did you participate in any to decision.in the past, participate i'n a decision 33 or recommendation to Ron.Tolson that Harry-William 12 be re a's s i gne d ?
13 - A Yes.
14 g About what time. frame was that?
15 A It happened first in September of 1982.
- 16 0 And why was that?
{ 37 A Oh, just didn't have a warm comfortable feeling
?
. 18 about his technical expertise, I guess more than 3
- 19 anything.
20 0 He was a civil inspector.
1
! 21 A He was a civil supervisor.
I C
- O Civil supervisor. Had he ever performed as a 22 23 civil inspector prior to coming to Comanche Peak, 1
24 to your knowledge?
25 A I assume he had somewhere. As a matter of fact,
u- 46 i_ -I know he has. He was -- not even from talking 2 to Harry,-from talking to Bob Taylor, Harry-was an l 3 inspector at Ft. Calhoun.
4 G On what do.you base this uncomfortable feeling l
'S about his ability or --
l i
6 A' The decisions he was making. ,
7 O And what kind of decisions were those?-
8 A I think it goes without saying that I didn't 9 agree with th em,i f I wanted to replace him, .and I 10 was the one that was ultimately responsible for ij his activities. .
12 O Were his decisions personnel decisions or technical 13 decisions?
14 A No, I didn't disagree with him on personnel 15 decisions. We really had very little interface, 16 I guess -- " interface" is a bad word. It just 17 didn't come up too much at that point in time.
l i
18 I just didn't _ f e*e l real comfortable with his l l
19 technical expertise.
20 0 Did you recognize prior to that time or around -
21 that time that Williams had weakness, a particular 22 weakness communicating with the people that 23 worked for him?
24 MR. DOWNEY: Object to that. He's never f,
l 25 said that he had a weakness in 1
u- 4 7 I
i communication. .I mean your question 2 assumes that Mr. Williams had such a 3 we ak ne s s and Mr. Brandt' recognized it, and 4 that's -- There's nothing that I've 5 heard'that suggests that to be true.
6 MR. DRISKILL: Okay. Well, as a little bit 7 of background, this report indicates that 8 approximately a year ago Mr. Tolson reported g to Mr. Chapman t h'a t Williams had short-i 10 comings as a supervisor. Okay. ,
31 Mr. Chapman stated"Mr. Tolson described 12 the weaknesses as communication difficultie 13 and a general lack of supervisory 14 strengths."
15 Okay. Mr. Brandt has already said 16 that he had ce rtain uncomfortable feelings a
j 17 about this particular individual, so I
. 18 naturally assume that sinca part of the 3
s
- 19 input for this report came from Mr. Tolson, 20 who Mr. Brandt frequently' interfaces with, a
3 21 that perhaps those are inputs Mr. Brandt t
22 may have made to Tolson, since Mr. Tolson 23 probably did not work with Mr. Williams as 24 frequently as Mr. Brandt might.
25 MR. DOWNEY: Well, I guess the best source
__ _ ~ ._ -.
. .i. of what Mr. Tolson's concerns 1are of 2 Mr. Williams would be Mr.'Tolson. .You 3 could.ask.him. lI mean.you are welcome to 14 ask Tom what his perceptions were, but I 5 don,'t think_it's fair to ask --
6' MR. DRISKILL: Did you ever. communicate .
. 7 this --
e MR. DOWNEY: -
.him what lir . Tolson's were.
9 MR. DRISKILL: - - - i n f o r m a ,t i o n to Mr.. Tolson?
10 THE'WITNES'S: I think either Vega, Chapman i 11 or Driskill'is trying' to.put words in my 4
12 mouth., '
Let me tell you what my general 13 feeling was, i .14 H,a r ry is not a real strong 15 individual. Harry is an intensely loyal l
-16 individual, as I think IJtold-you. IEthink i
17 I used the analogy once before if I told i
18 him to stand on his head in the middle of !
q 19 the road, he'd be out there standing on his I;
20 head in the middle of the road.
21 Harry was basically one to which if
! 22 . I gave a direction to Harry would go l I ;
i 23 implement it. My problem with Harry was '
. 24 when Harry had to think on his own to I
! 25 resolve either a technical-type problem or i
/
e
- 49 j what inspection. personnel perceived as a 2 technical problem Harry would oftentimes 3 make errors in judgment, what I perceived'
-4 as errors in judgment. Not to say who is 5 right or wrong, b u t' since I was supervising 6
him and n t vice versa, I'made-that 7 determination.
8 The other thing'I had a problem with 9 Harry is I don't know how to describe it 10 other than'using.my name as a hammer, 33 rather than going out and making.a decision
, ~1 12 on his own, and saying, .you know, by god 13 this is the way it's going to be, Harry 14 would g6 out and make a decision and credit 15 me with the decision and say "Well,.this 16 came straight from Brandt, and this is the j 17 way it's going to be." I have no problem t
- 18 with Harry saying "This came from Brandt,"
1 4 39 if it truly came from Brandt, but I have 20 problems with people using my name as a f .
! 21 figure of authority or whatever, you know.
'i' 22 To me, a supervisor ought to be able to 23 stand on his own, and I was having problems 1 24 in that area. If that's commun' ation, 25 if that's what Vega meant by communication)
.t
i.
yeah, that's a concern I expressed to 2
Tolson.
3 BY'MR. DRISKILL:
4 O And did Mr. Tolson tell you that Mr. Chapman or 5 others in the TUGCO'QA chain had decided not to 6
allow you to replace Harry Will'iams?
7
.L Essentially, yeah, at that time in September ~'82. .
8 G This report also mentions-that there were 9
allegations made in the ASLB hearings that to Williams had harassed or intimidated employees 11 I suppose prior to the ASLB hearigs which were 12 in the summer of '82, so that would have been 13 probably in the '80/'81 time frame, somewhere in 34 there.
15 MR. DOWNEY: I don't believe Mr. Brandt 16 was even at the site at that time.
17 MR. DRISKILL: I believe Mr. Brandt i
18 testified in those hearings. .
i 19 BY MR. DRISKILL:
0 Is that correct? !
20 21 A Yes. The only allegations I'm aware of were made I 22 by Darlene Stiner, not that she was intimidated -
23 directly, but she named several Hilti in'spectors 24 that had supposedly been intimidated by Harry.
25 0 And did you look into those statements or claims e
r u- sa j made by ~Darlene Stiner in those hearings?
- 2' Basically, did you investigate those in any way?
3 A In a general sort of way, yeah. If you are askin s
-~
4 did I sit down and interview 255 inspectors, ne, 5 I .didn't do that.
6 ay. yu come to any concitsions based on 7
your inquiries regarding --
8 A. I came to the conclusion that,. basically that g Darlene Stiner. mislead somebody_, or misunderstood 10 Harry Williams. I won't say she li'ed; that's a 33 pretty strong term. But some of the specific 12 allega'tions she came up with I and we,' speaking 13 as Texas Utilities, were unable to substantiate.
34 G Okay. So'what I-wanted to ask you was: Were your 15 pini ns regarding Harry Williams' performance as 16 a supervisor in whole or in any part based on any
[ 17 investigations you conducted based on allegations-<
18 A Well, that's a Sherwin Williams type question, if j ig I v e ever seen one. You know, what you are asking i
i 20 is did what I think of Harry have anything tc do a
21 with working with him, and --
~
22 O No. No. No.- I'm asking you --
23 MR. DOWNEY: You know, we're far off the 24 subject here, Mr. Driskill. The subject 25 of this meeting,'as you announced it, this
~
3 interview was to determine things concerning 1
2- Bill Dunham's termination, and we are ~far,
. J 3
far afield from that, g MR. GRIFFIN: We j us t ' don ' t want to repeat 5 this next week.
6 MR. DOWNEY: Neither do we, but I --
7 MR. GRIFFIN: As a matter of 'act, f I've got 8 some questions later for Tom that are g completely unrelated to the Dunham issue.
10 I don't think he'll have any trouble ij answering them. We can clean up some other 12 issues here. We are not springing any traps I
13 on Tom today. We're-just trying to get all a the business taken care of.
- 15 MR. DOWNEY: We had an earlier session with 16 Mr. Brandt, and I know you've had several 37 sessions with him, and it was a very clear is understanding, I thought, that today's 19 session was to wrap up the Dunham matter,
! 20 which was the last matter on your agenda.
21 MR. GRIFFIN: Well, if Tom has problems with 22 Mr. Driskill or my questions in trying to l
i l
23 9et all of our business taken' Care of, --
24 MR. DOWNEY: Well, the problem here is as 25 much mine as anyone else's. I mean I l-b
1
- = D a
~
.i prepared to inform myself as to the Dunham 2
matter, and discuss.with Tom the issues 3 that would come up, as you would expect any. counsel to do with their client, and 4 q 5 j I did not make~any preparation with respe.ct i , .
I 6 t Hilti bolts, and I must confess I de.n't i 7 think I would know one.if I saw it.
8 MR. GRIFFIN: Kell, would you do us a favor-9 then.
10 THE WITNESS: Could we go off the' record?
f
> \
33 MR. DRISKILL: -I think it would.be a good j 12 idea. Off the record. ,
1 4
, . 33 (Discussion off the record.)
l 14 MR. DRISKILL: Back on the record. b 15 THE WITNESS: Could I have the last 16 question repeated.
i 17 (The pending question was read by
{ . 18 the reporter as follows:
i j 19 " QUESTION: Were your opinions g i l 20 regarding Harry Williams' performance as
{
,f 21 a supervisor in whole or in any part based
- on any investigations you conducted based 22 23 on allegations -- ")
24 BY MR. DRISKILL: '
25 0 Subsequent to the 1982 hearings.
t- +* -**-1 T'"" ' 7 '
"T WW ** ' ' * - -
'8 "" N 9 * * * *"**"'++W"PTW'-'*"'-"WW-'
~ -5 4
~?
-i MR. DOWNEY: Well, why don't you withdraw 2 the question and start ~ over? Make.a fresh 3 start here.
4 MR. DRISKILL: Basically, that would be my 5 question. ,
I.
6 THE WITNESS: Subsequent to the .'82 7 b. earings? ,
i 8 BY MR. DRISKILL:
9 0 Yes, any investigations you conducted as a result 10 - of information coming out of those '92 hearings.
i
- it
~You said that you did a --
12 A You know, to say it didn't shape my opinion of i 13- Harry Williams would just be an outright lie, 14 because I think anything you find out about is somebody, you know, whether it be you, Bruce, or 1
j 16 anybody else -- Tolson, for that matte r -- is 17 going to shape your opinion.
1 18 I don't think it really changed anything i 19 I thought. I got to know Harry Williams as a 20 pe rs on a whole lot better, as time went on.
t 21 MR. DOWNEY: Excuse me. I think this is
- 22 going to be confusing. As I unde rs tand l
5 23 what you are saying, you are saying that 24 hearings affected your view of Harry l
25 Williams, and the ques tion was did your 4
, .,---c ---v., e - - - - . ,,,,,.--,,.,.-~--,,,,.-----g---n .e ----.,,,,,-m---n,----,,,,.,.r,.,,,m., , ,, , - . . , -- e.-,--- -m-
=
L-
.- as
. i nvestigations.-
-2 BY MR. DRISKILL:
.6 3 0 No. I'm saying, my question is there were-4 statements made in the hearings ---
5 MR. DOWNEY: Oh,-I see.
6 0 (Continuing) --
that Harry Williams was harassing, 7 intimidating, and various other things, individualt 8 I believe Tom said he looked into those things.
g He didn't interview 250 people to-c'ome'to any 10 conclusions,.but he did do some sort.of 33 investigation, if you want to call 'it th a t,, made 12 some sort of inquiries, and he looked into the 13 matters.that had been testified to.
14 And my question was: Did that investigatios 15 or those inquiries in whole or in any part have-16 anything to do with his opinion that Harry 8 .
! 17 Williams had some shortcomings as a supervisor.
. is A I think probably the only thing it really a
- ig accomplished, as far as what I thought of Harry, i
20 was it made firmer in my mind the belief that
{
t 3
21 oftentimes what Harry meant to say is not what.
1 I
22 people perceived he said.
23 0 That makes for some probles.s though.
24 A. I agree.
25 0 And I believe that we previously established that
., u j that's,probably .what occurred in January of 2
83 with respect to the skimme r pump room.
3 A That's exactly what I was going to bring up. I 4 think.that's jus t' probably anothe r example of --
5 I don't like the word miscommunication, because 6
I don't really think that. I think'it's just a 7 misconception by people of what Harry was really 8
trying~to tell them.
9 As I've told you before, I don't know a 10 more honest man than Harry Williams. He's 33 excruciatingly honest at times.
12 O Well' --
13 A And 'I don't think Harry would ever deliberately i4 do something that he perceived as wrong, for lack 15 f a better word.
16 0 What I'm looking for and really getting around 17 to is the point that in 1982 you recognized he 18 had certain deficiencies or shortcomings in his ,
19 leadership ability, and his communication skills 20 with his subordinates.
21 A Okay.
22 0 That fact was also found to exist in June or July.
23 of 1983 when you looked into the matter relating 24 to the skimmer pump room issue, which occurred in 25 January of 1983. Again, Harry Williams had some
_- 5 7 i shortcomings in.his ability to communicate with
- c
.. ~2 his _subordin ates ..
3 A- ,
.I'd like to stop you for just a second to clarify
~'
4 the record.
5 The investigationi or the looking into, as
'6 you~ used, that I.did in June of*1983 was not an 7 investigation of the incident in the pump skimmer 8 room, or skimmer pump room. It was an investiga-9 tion of attitudes of protective coatings 10 inspectors, in which I became asare of what 11 happened in the pump skimmer room.
12 0 okay.'These inquiries that you made , these 13 conversations or interviews of the various people-14 in the coatings department came about as a result 15 of your and Ron Tolson's --
16 A Right.
1
- 17 0 - -interview of Dunham, y
18 A That's correct.
j- 19 Q What I'm looking at, is based on all these facts i we have the situation that occurs in August where u 20 o
t 1
21 we have Bill Dunham, who we already recognize ,
i j' 22 back as far as June,at le as t for you a'iready n
[ 23 recognized he was frustrated and having problems l
l 24 working for Harry Williams.
l l ,,
25 A Uh-huh. .
, v. o o i
1 Q.
We have a cituation where, perhaps in the wrong
,. 2 s e tting , Tom Kelley and Jerry Firtel have a 3 meeting to discuss technical things, and Dunham I
4 brings up matters which they have no control 5 over, supervisory matters pertaining to Harry
- 6. Williams, and the issue of. irs versus N C R,s , and 7 some of those things. We've got Dunham ccming 8 up with that sort of thing, and he's been being 9 brought in for a counseling session due to his 10 attitude.
11 A Uh-huh.
12 0 With all of those things in mind, and s nce the 13 counseling session, although it was based en his 14 attitude, may have been the ultimate result of 15 his frustration with Harry Williams, who we 16 already recognize has some leadership shortcomings ,
17 do you think that that may be the reason he was 18 as frustrated as he was when he got to the point 19 of being counseled?
20 MR. DOWNEY: You can answer that if you 21 unde rs tand it.
22 A I think you are asking for speculation. I only 23 want to make a couple of points clear. Number 24 one, Dunham was urged and pleaded with in that l
25 meeting of August 24th to get back on track. You
O <
, ,[
t .- t t-know,~"Eill, the purpose of this meetingf is n o t-2- to discuss,that. 'It's'to discuss engineering 3 changes in the coatings program, by Mr. KrisherL
'~~
4 on two separate-occasions, so I was told, during
~
5 this 'two-h'our long meeting. At which point Bil1 6 refused. He kept getting back'into the is. sues to 7 _ which he perceived Kelley and Firtel'eculd do~
8 something about. I assume he perceived'that. I g 'have no'-- I c a n ' ,t fath'om why else he would have 10 brought them up.
1 If you are asking me is his frustration 12 level = an excuse for what happened-in the meeting 13 of August 26th, I'd say no. To me it's just'a 14 business decision or professional decision that y-15 d'on't go in and tell somebody two or three levels 16 above you in a supervisory chain to take'a bite e
17 and not be ready to live with the consequences.
h 18 MR. DOWNEY: Could we go off the record a a
l 19 second?
20 MR. DRISKILL: Yes.
i* **
21 (Discussion off the record.)
(*
22 BY MR. DRISKILL:
23 0 With the knowledge.that Harry had some short-24 comings in his leadership ability, and the fact 25 that as you stated you previously requested that
, 3 ho be transferred out. And_ including the fact 2
now that you are aware in_ June 1983 that Dun, ham 3 had had problems with Williams as a supervisor, 4 do you feel like wha't ultimately happened on his 5 being counseled may have been a result of,his 6 frustrations with Williams. .
7 A Now, as I said before, for me to speculate on 8 Bill's attitude on August 26 th is my guess is'as g good as yours. .
10 A. couple of points I'd like to make:
ij Number one, his a t t'i tud e in f-ron t of Gordon 12 Purdy, who wa,s administrative 1y his ultimate 13 supervisor, is unacceptable to me. And I assume 14 by the actions ,that took place on August 26 th they 15 were certainly unacceptable to Mr. Purdy.
16 His behavior and frustration in the meeting 17 of August the 24th I deemed unacceptable from two 18 standpoints, totally not related to the context 19 of his con ce rns . Number one, I thought his effort 20 to detract the meeting to get it on to a subject 21 other than what the meeting was called for, areas 22 in which the two' personnel conducting the meeting 23 had no, certainly no authority or responsibility 24 to change, and probably no expertise in th e
. 25 area, was uncalled for. Even after repeated urging
61 l l
1 tur Mr. Krisher to get back on the subject of the
~
2 meeting, he refused.
3 And, secondly, as a supervisor, as a le a d 4 inspecter, 'his conduct was certainly 5 unprofessional and belittling the craft. Whether 6 the craft is right, wrong, or indifferent is .
7 neither here nor there as far as Dunham is a concerned. Dunham's job is to inspect the work 9 that the craft did, to say it's acceptable or 10 unacceptable. 'But to'say that he wouldn.'t let
} 11 the craft paint his house is a slur on their 12 ability. To claim that he's a better painter than
! 13 they are is totalling i rrelevant. He was not 14 contracted to be a painter,at Comanche Peak. He W
~
15 contracted to be a coatings inspector. And I did 16 not perceive that that attitude was healthy as a I
- 17 lead inspector, to be leading other inspectors h 18 toward the ultimate goal of implementing the OA 1
l 19 program for protective coatings.
L
< I 20 It was for that reason more than any a
f I 21 specific context of his concerns that I decide'd I
22 he needed counseling.
i -
23 0 To your knowledge what were the inspectors tol,d- :
24 prior to going into the meeting on' August 24th
, 25 with regard to what the purpose of the meeting i
,4., -.. - ,-, ,-# . . _ _ _ - 7. ,,_-_ ,, .,._, .. ,_ ., ,-- ,_,. _ ,,#, ..m,..,_q.,,,,.,_,___,_w,,-,.9,y-,r f" - - -
. '~ '62
(, was?
2 A They were told that two corrosion enginee's r would 3_ .be present to discuss the recent changes in the
, -4 coatings program. Any questions- they had about
) 5 the recent changes could be aired at that time. .
6 And by changes I.mean engineering changes, design
~
7 changes.
- 8 It would be out of place for two corrosion J
, e engineers to talk about changes in the QA program to or the inspection program. They have nothing to i
11 do with them.
12 MR. DR-ISKILL: Okay. I don't have any 13 other questions. I believe that Mr. Griffin has i
1 i 14 some ques'tions he would like to ask you.
', 15 BY MR. GRIFFIN:
i 16 G Well, I've g o't some questions on the same subject, 4
t being Kelley and Firtel.
4 17 Did you ever hear or has i
1 18 anybody told you prior to the meeting or since the L
- 19 meeting that this was an opportunity for the 20 coatings inspectors to air their grievances, get f 21 their concerns off their chest?
i
- i 22 A Is tha t meant as a quote? I mean are you saying i
i 23 have I ever heard those words?
24 0 Have you ever heard that concept?
I 25 A If your question is have I ever heard the idea of l.
- = os
-1 a meeting being.that, you know, whatever you.are '
. 2 unhappy.about, you know, this is your chance to 3 air it, absolutely not.
~
4 G Never. Okay.
5 A Because if I had I would have made sure that I was.
6 present personally in thc meeting before the 7 meeting took place. If I couldn't'have made i' t 8 at 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon I would have e canceled the meeting.
10 The reason I did not feel bad about not 11 personally being present was the fact that all 12 ,
they were supposed to be discussing was the 13 recent specification changes and construction 14 procedure changes and the-philosophy behind 15 such, which Kelley and Firtel were certainly 16 capable of handling.
{ 17 0 Okay. Did you ever -- During Dunham's counseling i
- 18 session or as a result of Dunham's counseling i
l 19 session did you ever hear anybody indicate that I 20 Dunham had indicated to them that he was speaking 21 for the whole group in that meeting? ..
~
22 A That Dunham was speaking for the whole group 23 during the counseling session on August 26th with 24 Purdy?
25 g Did you ever heai anybody -- you were not --
v
)
.- 64
- , P. Phich
- un: Cling cc:ica ar: y:u talkic.g abcut?
2 O Dunham's counseling session.
3 A. On the 26th, his last day of work.
4 0 Yes.
5 A No, I did not.
6 MR. GRIFFIN: 'Okay. That's all the questions 71 I have on that.
I 8 BY MR. GRIFFIN:
9 G I want to ask.ycu'if I could just a couple of 10 questions related to our previous interview, my 11 previous interview with you about the coatings 12 records. -
13 A Okay.
14 0 It's just something I neglected to ask you when
'5 we were holding that interview.
16 During that backfit program did coatiags 17 QC inspectors have access to the old coatings 18 records?
19 A. I don't understand the purpose of your question 20 at all. I'll answer it.
21 The old coatings records, if you are 22 referring to old by prior to October, ::ovember 23 1981 --
24 O Correct.
25 A --
they were certainly available. They were in
's l
~
1 the trailer that ev6r-single coatings inspector 2 was housed in. They were unlocked-during the day, 3 I know for a fact. For a while they were in card-
- -4 board boxes.
5 g Okay. Let me be more specific then, Tom.
6 After these records were moved to the vault 7 did the ' c oatings inspectors have access to these 8 records during backfit?
9 A I assume they did. For a whil.e there was a 10 freeze put on by Taylor, I think with any IR 4
11 number less than 2 0 ,.0 0 0 .
E 12 0 I'll [ ell you tha,t was a result of my investiga-13 tion, but prior to that time. Well, let me phras.
14 it the o the r way .
15 To your knowledge, we re coatings 16 inspectors denied access to these records?
i I
}.
17 A As far as I know they have free access, because
(
18 I certainly saw them in the vault, often.
I 19 0 Prior to the time that these --
Are you aware i
j ; 20 that prior to the time that these things, these i
- .; 21 coatings records were made permanent vault ,,
22 documents, that they were stored in the vault?
23 A It's kind of a catch twenty-two situation, and 24 let me explain why. We s tore 3 them in the vault 25 because up until October, November 1981 we though!
J f
e 4
" 66
, i they were permanent' records. I had'no ~ idea that 2 we had this massive pile of paper that wasn't 3 worth, you know, damn for anything, when actually 4 they were stored-in the vault. You know, we get 5
cited by Region IV for inadeqdate records, we 6 take them out of the vault and try to so som'ething 7 with them, and put them back in. So, naturally, l' i
^
8 they were in the vault.
g 3 Well, --
- 10 A They were stored in the vault for two reasons.
11 One, for a reason that at least we thought some 12 of them were ' final, or I thought. You know, I i
13 was sitting there fat, dumb, and happy thinking --
14 I had no idea they were in the. shape they were in, i
15 because I had never looked. I had never had 16 occasion to look.
1 17 Secondly, they we re stored there for fire I
la reasons, after we became aware of the problem. I I i
i l 19 think to a certain extent there wasn't even an 20 effort made by, maybe not a deliberata effort made 21 by some people to hide some records. In particular ,
22 Bob Hamilton, who at the time was the lead i 23 inspector in charge of coatings.
24 0 Well, let:me --
^
25 A Let me finish, please. We purged the Field
- -, --y. - -- -. ,.-m- -
= . . - - - . . - . - , . . - ,e y. .,-,m. - - - - - - . - - , . -- --,,-..-c._,,c-, ----e
T=-
== o s R ._ i Officc for all tho."old records" we thought we 2 could find, and started this.backfit' program based 3 on adequacy or non-adequcy of existing records.
4 We asked repeatedly that all-existing
< 5 ' records be sent in. ,
Because they had them rat-6 holed in file drawers and desks, and everything 7 'we were sure that had occurred.
8 After Mr. Hamilton's dismissal in March of 9 1982, I think -- I think it was March 9, 1982 --
to we fou'nd a three-inch notebook that probably had hi however many pieces of paper it takes to fill a 12 =three ' inch notebook, probably three to five 13 hundred, irs on miscellaneous' support steel, cable 14 tray hangers, pipe supports, things like that, that 15 Hamilton had had on his bookshelf on top of his is desk, which I find impossible for him to realize 17 as many times as we asked for all of the existing
. 18 records to be sent in that they weren't. there.
j 19 And I have reason to believe that those records i
20- were being kept out there for some reason, l
t
} 21 whatever he thought he would do with them. ..
22 0 Are you aware within the last two or three months 23 additional coatings records have been found on
, 24 the site and removed to the vault?
25 A Yes.
- 68 l
1 O And aleo ara you aware that we've spanned a timp t
t 2 period from, as you say, March of '82, Hamilton's l I
3 termination, all the way up to like August of83.
4 Now, my questian is much --
I can't give.ycu the 5 dates, but it's much more narrow. I'm talking 6 about from the time that these old coatings ,
7 records, the coatings records that were made prior 8 to April '81, from the time that they were removed 9 from the trailers into the vault, but prior to the to time that they became official vault documents, 11 were coatings inspectors denied' access to these 12 records in co.njunction with backfit?
13 A The question just blows me away, to tell you the
(
14 truth, because.they worked with them everyday. I 15 mean those inspectors that were doing backfit.
16 0 Well, I wouldn't be asking the question if they 17 weren't denied.
18 A. No, you wouldn't be asking the question if someone 19 hadn't said they ware denied. There is a distinct 20 difference between the story you were told and 21 what actually happened.
22 0 If a coatings inspector then -- .
23 A. Listen --
24 0 Let's speculate for a moment.
25 If a coatings inspector had gone to the vault
t
-l i document countor, requected o$a of thoco old 2
documents, would the vault custodians have given 3 these documents lo them?
4 A If he requested a copy of such?
5 0 Yes.
6 A Yes. .
7 0 Okay.
B A If an inspector goes and requests a copy of any 9 vault document it requires a supervisory approval.
10 G Do you know of any instructions given to vault 11 custodians related to denying coatings inspectors 12 access' to these records?
13 A They were told the same as any other record, if
~
14 they wanted to see to provide it. If they wanted 15 a copy of it they needed approval.
16 MR. GRIFFIN: That's all my questio- .
{ 17 MR. DRISKILL: I don't have any otner 18 questions.
a l 19 Mr. Brandt, have I or any other NRC i
- 20 representative here threatened you in any f
f 21 manner or offered you any rewards in g ..
22 return for this statement?
23 THE WITNESS: No.
24 MR. DRISKILL: Have you given this state-25 ment freely and voluntarily?
, 3 THE WITNESS: I wcc cubpooncod.
2 MR. DRISKILL: Is there anything further 3 you care to add for the record?
4 THE WITNESS: No, sir.
5 MR. DRISKILL: That will conclude the 6
interview. .Thank' you.
7 ,
(whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the a interview was concluded.)
9 10 11 12 ,
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 -
20 21 22 23 24 25
m.== /1 )
. 1 STATE OF TEXAS I I
2 COUNTY OF TARRANT I 3
4 I, MARY L.-BAGBY, a Notary Public 5 in and for the said county and state, do hereby certify 6 that,the facts stated by me in the caption-to' the 7 foregoing testimony are true; that the foregoing 8 testimony of the witness, C. THOMAS BRANDT, was 9 reduced to typewriting by me'or under my supervision 10 from my stenomask n'otes taken at the time and place it set out in the caption hereto, the said' witness being g 12 first duly lautioned and sworn to testify the truth, 13 the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and the 14 above-and-foregoing testimony is a full, true, correct 15 and c c:aple te transcript of said proceedings had at the 16 time of taking said testimony.
i 17 Given under my hand and seal of i'
. 18 office on this the llth day of January, A.D., 1984.
b
! 19 20 7)fW
} Ma?9 L. Ba$ty', No tary Public l; 21 in and for the State of Texas ..
22 My Commission expires 10/12/85 23 24
- 25
. o..
RESULTS OF IllTERVib WITh DAVID N. CHAPMAN AS RECORDED BY NRC INVE'STIGATOR D. D. DRISKILL Ok JAf'UARY 16. 1984 4 On January 16, 1984, David N. CHAPMAN, Ouality Assurance Manager, Texos Utilities Generating Company (TUGCO) was interviewed in ~his office located at 2001 Bryan St., Dallas, Texas, by NRC Investigators D. D. DRISKIL,L and H. B.
GRIFFIN. CHAPMAN was interviewed regarding his knowledge of the termination of William DUNHAM by Brown & Root, Inc., at Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station (CPSES).
When questioned concerning the August 26, 1983, termination of DUNHAM, CHAPMAN stated Ronald TOLSON, the CPSES Site QA Supervisor, had briefed him concerning DUNHAM's disruption of a Frotective Coatings QC rieeting on August 24, 1983.
CI'AFI'.A!; stated that on about Friday, August 26, 1983, TOLSON further explained that an original decision was .niade 'to have DUNHAM counselled regarding his attitude, and additionally, impose disciplinary action of t.hree days off
- without pay. CHAPMAN stated TOLSON told him that the three days off was not going to be impcsed due to the delay in effecting the disciplinary action.
CHAPMAN stated that TOLSON telephonically informed him, en that Fricay, or on Saturday, that DUNHAM, during the counselling session with Gordon PURDY, had refused to read the counselling report and had repeatedly said, " Walk me to the gate." CHAPMAll stated that based on what TOLSON said, he got the impression DUEFAM had "cuit." CHAPMAN stated he cio not know until he read the tr.mination notice. tnat DUhhAM was " fired." He stated he does not fault Plf.CY for his action because "he had ample reason for firing" DUNHAM.
CHAPftAN stated that upon being notified r,f DUNHAM's termination by TOLSCT., he i :
(CHAPMAN) notified B. R. CLEMENTS (TUGC0 Vice Fresident of Nuclear Operations) l and R. J. CARY (TUGC0 Executive Vice President). CHAPliAN stated they both
!, concurred in the conclusion that wtat PURDY had done was proper.
l i j CHAPliAN stated he has never met DUNHIJ), ror did he have any part in ary l
I decisions made regardir.g'DUNHAM.
l l 1
E7N.161I
_ _ _ _ . - - - _ w m m m _,; _, m.y.m
When' questioned concerning the TUGC0 investigation of the allegations made by DUNHAM, CHAPMAN recalled the investigation. When specifically queried relative to statements made in that investigative report relative to attempts by TOLSON to have Harry WILLIAMS transferred, CHAPftAN stated TOLSON had discussed this matter with him (CHAPMAN) in about the Fall of 1982. CHAPMAN stated WILLIAMS' name was brcught out in allegations made during the 1982 Atomic Licensing and Safety Board (ASLB) testimony; however, TOLSON assured him that WILLIAMS' only problem was in his "ccmunication skills" with workers. CHAPMAN stated he decided that efforts needed to be mac' to improved WILLIAMS' communication skills rather than transfer him off the site. CHAPMAN stated transferring WILLIANS wculd give the appearance there was some truth in allegations maoe regarding WILLIAMS. CHAPMAN stated he did not want to create an "open season on supervisors" due to allegations being made about them. CHAPitAN stated he was aware that WILLIAMS' area of technical expertise was in the area of civil engineering quality control; a,n area requiring less and less personnel. He stated that based on this fact, it was decided WILLIAMS could be moved out at a later date. CHAPMAN stated TOLSON had discussed this. fact with Dravo Constructors, Incorporated., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the company from whom WILLIAMS services were contracted. CHAPMAN stated WILLIAMS' September 1984 transfer (cff the CPSES site) had nothing to do with the termination of DUNHAM.
When questioned regarding the TUGC0/B&R decision to offer reemployment to DUNHAM, CHAPPAN stated this decision was made by TUGC0 management. CHAFMAN stated R. J. CARY said the decision to offer DUt' HAM's re-employment was not
- based on any belief that anything improper occurred relative to the terminction of DbhHAM. CHAPMAN stated GARY indicated this decision was made in an effort to avoid the expense of lengthy litigating regarding DUNHAM's complaint with the Department of Labor (DOL). CHAPMAN stated the decision to offer DUNHAM re-employment was made by both GARY and T. L. AUSTIN, the President of Brown &
Root, Inc.
i l EtiD OF RESULTS OF INTERVIEW WITH DAV:D N. CHAPMN ON JANUARY 16, 1984 l -
SIGNATURE:
D. D. DRISKILL, Investigator 01 Field Office, Region IV 2
r-
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oc t.:be r 1. . 1m iEB3 OCT 20 1.i 7: 54 5
. 1 Mf!CE CF N!E8?iCAiiGE l flELD Cffi2. RECIM P! I Mr. Ocrdan i'uror QA Mana;er -
Brown 4 Root, Inc. -
P. O'.' box 1001 .
Glen Kese, Tex.ar. 76 1'.i
!'e - 81!Iii;ra \. l . 2. i .: ': r. .si . .'. ! . isit
Dear Mr. Purdy:
This letter is to notify you of tne results .: our n.mpiinnce ictions in the above casq. As you know lilliam A. Dunham (;1 eel a oa. plaint with.the scretary of Labor under the Ener;ey Keur;;iinizntion Act' tm 5 :; t.en:ber 23. I '/ M l . .s copy of the conplaint, a copy :sf Reg 61nt ions,, 29 C.rR Pait 2!. . and a copy of the A p e r tini:n t section M the 3. car ot e were t u r::ished li. .: p r e v i o n.s i .: t t.: r f ro:- t!, ;::
J -
otfice.
Our initial effort to i neiliate the it.a tte r re ve.>f. d that the. x r t ies av:' d not at that time reach a mutually agreeaisie tet t leuent. An ixte t'i;ation .eas then
] conducted. Based on .iur investig nion, the we l: h: :t - v i'Jen. c t o :!a t e i n.i l ca t es that '41111am A. Dunhan a a.protecie1 ennlevee ent.. in.a in .. nreteet'ed :o :ivicy within the 3:abit o:' roe v.n c rg: Re..rganization A.. .
n.d tin t et i se r irr.i n::, ; o n .is
, defined and pr' hit,i:.d '-- the 4t:nnt w.o: a f.i. . -
t h. ic t li.na .;.: i c h x, r i. . . -
his complaint. Ti ; i ,. i ng d i.<c i es. ires .e. - p. r . ..i., : v t i. t !. i - .le t . i. in.. .
- o:: : .
F;.c t :, gathe:ad rir :. h e ;n n - i : ga r r . . . sir . unah:r- . v. ..ii c i for terminativa e. ore bl. . i n.. I c. nn s.- i n .. .. . fit
. 'a rJ . ..
was termira:ed c.n::.c he .. . , . il in . .. i- r.s .- -
harassment :sud . .at. - id ' sn i v .r . .'
This letter w.l. . . . t . ; '.- -
the viola:ieti .m.i r" r it: 'o ic: .
I
- 1. P.e i n S r .a t O ?.. . !i* '
b . -I. . t 1 r* .i
- 1 8 En t h. ;%: "et
.c ..i(-
"'. 3ack pay f.,1 .m . u .- :v: - t lo :- . m. : i-t
- 3. ": toving e::penses i nc o r rW si. in ; .! t"; r : ' . .. in :. i - :cr t.-e m.un:
spent t .- r.'l.:cate to his new ;.fr a:n 8. r . e am.iait a. - ua r: :.
i return te h;.- cid job
( . f. . Expenses ine n. re.' wh ile j.* - h.in t i:. a. o i s rs ,m .a . 'u:
1 1
1 C
EXHIBIT (26)
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n a $. '
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William A. Dunham ve.'lirown fa Root Page 2 '#
- 5. . Legal ~ expenses Incurred by air, aanh. . ribnu t d he said in l ui l by Brown & Root-
- 6. Compensatory damag%
~
- 7. Purging of his personnel (!!e oi .un re-fe r -nie .f :a la termin. ::iua.
This letter will also notify you t b .: i f rou wi.<n to appa,! the ibove findings and re m.h , you have .. i iubt tu i . r a. ! h, t r f ~ i.* sn t'ie r..rs.r.l .
To exercise this rie,ht you ,...st, w i t h i n i !.v. I- a;endar d;.t. vi r.:c.:pt of this letter, file your isquic.-t . r a in.e ;i. b i.1.. . ia to:
The Chief Administrative Lr. Iudp '
U. S. Department af Labor Suite 700, Vanguard duilding 1111 - 20th Street, NW 4ashington, DC 20036 Unless a-telegram request 's i' received by t!m t'hief Admini' strative Lav Judge within the five-day period, this notice of determination and remedial action will-become the final order of the Secretarv of Labor' By copy of this' .
' letter I am advjsing William A. Durham of the determination and rip,ht to the Chief Administrative Law Judge. If you decide to request a hearing i
j it will be necessary to send ropies of the telegram to William A. Durham and to me at Room 7A12, 819 Taylor Street, Fort Mirth, Texas.76102. After i
i I receive the cery of your request, ap;)ropr iate preparat ions for the hearint 'y can be made. if you have any questions do nut hesitate to call me.
It should be made clear to all parties that the role of the .7epartnert M l 1. abor is not to represent the parties in any heariar. rIie N. par. ment wu ald
! be neutral in sues a hearing which is simpl:. phrt c.f the fact-develop er.:
L-process, and only allaws the parties an spiartunity tc present evide::. e .'or i
the record. If there is a hearing, an Order of the See rc. car ab.H ' h Msed upon the record edie at said imarina, an i chai! ti t;.or :>c n !di rera; r ! ic e i
relief or deny the .. n.i l a in t .
l Sincerely, Curtis L. Paer .
Area Director t
I. 1 I
l t f _.
i l
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