ML20134K497
| ML20134K497 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Salem  |
| Issue date: | 02/08/1995 |
| From: | NRC OFFICE OF INSPECTION & ENFORCEMENT (IE REGION I) |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20134K135 | List: |
| References | |
| FOIA-96-351 NUDOCS 9702140055 | |
| Download: ML20134K497 (64) | |
Text
ATTACHMENT 13 1
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION r
REGION 1 r
i t
In re:
-PUBLIC SERVICE ELECTRIC AND GAS CO.
l LAWRENCE REITER l
An Enforcement Conference was held before Loretta B.
Devery, Registered Professional l
4 Reporter and Notary Public, at the offices of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region l
1,
'4 7 5 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, i
i h
Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, February 8,
- 1995, I
k I
j commencing at 1:30 P.M.
i i
l 1
PRESENT:
WAYNE LANNING j
JOHN WHITE KARLA SMITH, ESQ.
j DANIEL HOLODY SCOTT BARBER LENNY OLSHAN MARK SATORIUS MARK J.
WETTERHAHN, ESQ.
4 ARTHUR H.
DOMBY, ESQ.
LAWRENCE REITER l
f W
a ALL POINTS REPORTING L
723 Erlen Road Norristown, PA 19401 (610) 272-6731 g
v i\\
O lk n
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 9702140055 970211 r
ONEILL96-351 PDR
/
l
1
(
MR. WHITE:
My name is John White.
I'm 3
the Division of Reactor Projects Section Chief, 4
Section 2A.
This afternoon's meeting is an 5
enforcegent conference with Mr. Lawrence Reiter, 6
relative to Office of Investigations' findings 7
pertaining to issues relative to harassment and 8
intimidation that may have been exercised by Mr.
9 Reiter against two Public Service Electric and Gas 10 employees.
11 Specifically, on December 3rd, 1992, 12 two SRG engineers attempted to process an incident 13 in accordance with station procedures by submitting i
14 an incident report to the General Manager, Salem 15 Operations and the Operations Manager.
The incident 16 report questioned the qualification of commercial 17 grade air supply pressure set point regulators which 1
18 control service water flow to the containment fan 19 cooling units.
20 In conversation with the SRG engineers, 21 the General Manager, with various cooperation and 22 advice of the Operations Manager, told the 23 individuals to get out of his office and threatened 24 to have them removed from the site, an action of ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 1
1 course that was interpreted by the SRG engineers as
's 2
harassing and intimidating.
3 Upon deliberation, the General Manager 4
wrote a memorandum to you, Mr. Reiter, the General i
5 Manager of Quality Assurance and Nuclear Safety 6
Review, requesting to have the engineers removed 7
from any direct involvement with the Salem station.
8 Subsequently, further apparent discriminating action 9
was directed against the individuals, we believe, 10 when you deliberated and took some action to 11 reprimand or counsel the SRG engineers relative to 12 their submittal of the incident report and their 13 handling of the situation.
14 In conclusion, the O.I.,
Office of 15 Investigations' report appears to support the 16 finding that the SRG engineers were harassed and 17 intimidated by various actions directed or taken by 18 these former Salem managers, including yourself.
19 The purpose of this enforcement 20 conference is to make sure that you are aware of the 21 NRC's findings relative to this matter and to 22 solicit from you any other information, corrections 23 in our perception, mitigating factors that pertain 24 to this event.
1 ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
~
i 1
With that, I'd like to identify the 2
participants as Dan Holody, Enforcement Coordinator 3
for Region 1,
Miss Karla Smith, Regional Counsel for 4
Region 1.
Mr. Scott Barber, Project Engineer, i
5 Division of Reactor Projects.
Mr. Wayne Lanning, 6
Deputy Director of the Division of Reactor Projects.
7 Mr. Mark Satorius, Office of Enforcement.
And Mr.
8 Len Olshan, Project Manager, NRR.
9 If you would identify yourself for the 10 record, please, I'd appreciate it.
11 MR. REITER:
I am Larry Reiter, and 12 with me is Art Domby, an attorney, who is 13 representing me.
And also in the room, at ny 14 invitation, is Mr. Mark Wetterhahn, who is i
i 15 representing Public Service Electric and Gas.
16 MR. WHITE:
Do you have any questions 17 before we start in terms of what our protocol is 18 today?
19 MR. DOMBY:
I have one minor 20 administrative question.
Will we be provided a copy 21 of this transcript?
l 22 MR. WHITE:
No.
I 23 MR. HOLODY:
You will not be provided I
24 while the enforcement deliberations are under way.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I 1
At the conclusion, if you desire a copy, you can
(
2 come in and make a request for that.
3 MR. DOMBY:
Okay.
i 4
MR. REITER:
Thank you.
5 MR. HOLODY:
If there is any request 6
from anyone subsequent to the conclusion such that 7
the report is released, we will make it a public 8
document also.
9 MR. WHITE:
With that said, then I will 10 turn this over to you, Mr. Reiter, and you can 11 discuss your perception of these events that were --
12 that our Office of Investigations has reviewed.
And 13 we'd appreciate that.
Thank you.
just one 14 MR. HOLODY:
Before you get 15 thing I should go over is just that, I think you 16 covered most of it, John, but we have these meetings i
17 with individuals to determine whether we should be 18 taking any enforcement action against an individual 19 such as yourself, just like when we had the meeting 20 with the company this morning, with PSE&G, to 21 determine what action, if any, to take against the 22 company.
23 And you know John went over the kinds 24 of things we'd like to hear from you today, both ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I 1
admission or denial of any apparent violation that 2
was put in our report, why these events came to 3
light, if you were ever in such a position again 4
involved in nuclear activities, why it wouldn't 5
happen again, those kinds of things.
And we utilize 6
that to make a determination on what course of 7
action we might take.
And I'll go through some of 8
those options that are available to us at the 9
conclusion of the meeting.
10 MR. REITER:
Okay, fine.
Thank you.
11 I'm happy to have the opportunity to provide my 12 insight to the actions of an incident that happened 13 on December 3rd,
'92 and subsequently through 14 January of 1993.
As I will explain, I don't see 15 that my actions can be construed as harassment and 16 intimidation because actually I was very much 17 supporting both Mr. Williams and Mr. Craig regarding 18 the particular events.
2 19 A lot of the points that I will be 20 making come from my contemporaneous Day Timer notes 21 which I take during the course of meetings.
22 Subsequent to my interview with the Office of 23 Investigations, they requested and I provided them 24 with a copy of my notes.
However, I never had the ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 opportunity to see if there were any questions
\\
2 regarding those.
I also understand that O.I.,
3 subsequent again to my interview:with them, obtained 4
a draft memorandum that I had written but never 5
issued.
Again, I never had the chance to explore 6
those circumstances.
And hopefully, we can provide 7
some information on that today.
8 MS. SMITH:
Can I ask a question about t
9 the Day Timer notes?
All of the Day Timer notes 10 0.I.
has a copy of?
11 MR. REITER:
Yes.
12 MS. SMITH:
You're not going to talk 13 about any additional ones other than what O.I.
14 already has copies of?
i 15 MR. REITER:
No.
I provided them 16 copies of everything that I had.
17 Perhaps the best thing would be to 18 explain the organizational structure at that point 19 in time, December of 1992.
I was the General 20 Manager of Quality Assurance and Nuclear Safety 21 Review.
I had five managers who reported to me, 22 four of them associated with various parts of the QA 23 organization, and Mr. Edwin Liden, who was Manager 24 of Nuclear Safety Review.
Reporting to him, he had 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
?
1 several organizations, the Human Performance 2
Enhancement System, an offsite safety review 3
organization, and the Safety Review Group at Salem 4
and the Safety Review Group at Hope Creek.
Those 5
groups are in essence the ISEG, the ISEG, 6
Independent Safety Evaluation Group that is 7
required.
The head of the Salem Safety Review Group 8
was William Cianfrani.
As I said, he reported 9
directly to Liden.
10 A key point that I really would like to 11 make and --
12 MR. LANNING:
Mr. Reiter, before you go 13 on, could you clarify who you reported to?
14 NR. REITER:
I reported at that time to 15 Stephen Miltenberger, who was the Vice President and 16 Chief Nuclear Officer.
I supported my Safety Review 17 engineers in identifying and pursuing their 18 concerns.
I saw that it was both -- there was an 19 issue that they were raising, a technical issue, and 20 also saw that there were personality and personal 21 issues that were involved there.
22 I need to make clear that it's d
23 understood that at the time of the event I had just 24 been called as a SERT manager, Significant Event ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
i 1
Response Team, to manage a SERT at Hope Creek for
- n 2
event that had just happened there.
And that in 3
essence tied me up until December 14th.
4 When I was contacted by Mr. Vondra, I 5
immediately asked Mr. Liden to get involved.
I 6
directed him to go to Vondra's office and to get 7
involved to try and resolve the issue.
8 MR. WHITE:
When were you first 9
contacted by Mr.
10 MR. REITER:
I received a phone call 11 from Mr. Vondra sometime late morning on the third i
12 just as I was about to leave to go to Hope Creek.
13 On my way out the door, I went into Liden's office 14 and directed him to go over to Salem and get i
15 involved.
1 4
16 MR. LANNING:
What was the nature of l
17 the phone call?
18 MR. REITER:
It was to the effect of 19 there were two Safety Review Engineers in his office l
20 and there was an issue that needed to be resolved.
d 21 I don't recall the exact words.
As I say, my focus 22 at that point in time really was on the Hope Creek 23 SERT.
But I could tell from Vondra that, from his 24 call, that it's something that needed some ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
=.
1 involvement, and that's why I directed Liden to go 2
over and get involved.
3 MR. WHITE:
Had you ever received a 4
similar call from Mr. Vondra or another General 5
Manager relative to activities under your auspices?
6 MR. REITER:
Not of this type, no.
7 MR. WHITE:
Did he mention the memo 8
that he was sending to you?
9 MR. REITER:
At that point in time, no.
10 No.
If I can refer to the handout that we provided, 11 I'd like to go through some points there.
12 As I said, I was not available on 13 December 3rd through the 14th.
When I returned from 14 the SERT on the 14th, I -met with the Safety Review 15 Group and Mr. Liden to find out from them what had 16 transpired and to get a briefing from them.
17 As a result of that, I contacted Mr.
18 Vondra and asked to have a meeting with he and his 19 management team to talk to them about it, to try and
]
20 get their perspective.
Again at this point I was 21 trying to gather information about what had 1
22 transpired.
I met with them on the 16th of 23 December.
24 MR. WHITE:
May I just interrupt before ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 you leave the 14th?
Can you describe what the 2
briefing consisted of in terms of what you 3
understood on the 14th?
4 MR. REITER:
The briefing at that point 5
was really my listening to the two engineers who 6
were involved and the other involvement that Mr.
7 Cianfrani had had to learn from them what had 8
transpired, what happened, why they felt it 9
happened, whatever did go on there.
So it was 3
10 really, from my standpoint, trying to get a general 11 briefing on what had happened and what was going on.
12 MR. WHITE:
How did they characterize 13 that?
14 MR. REITER:
They characterized it as a 15 meeting that they felt was very confrontational.
16 They didn't understand the nature of why it had 17 degraded to what it degraded.
They were concerned 18 about the statement that Vondra had made to them 19 about threatening to call Security if they didn't 20 get out of his office.
They talked about what they 21 had heard as a rumor about a letter that Vondra had 22 written to me.
They had not seen it.
I had not 23 seen it.
24 On the 16th, Vondra told me that he had ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 l
1 1
written me a letter.
I told him that I hadn't seen l
2 the letter.
3 MR. LANNING:
I'm sorry to interrupt 4
again, but did you debrief with Mr. Linden at all?
5 MR. REITER:
Liden, yes.
6 MR. LANNING:
Liden?
7 THE WITNESS:
If I remember correctly, 8
late the previous week I may have talked to him on 9
the phone and learned what was going on.
10 MR. LANNING:
But you did give him the 11 responsibility to follow up and do something?
12 MR. REITER:
Yes, I did, yes.
I 13 MR. LANNING:
But as I understand it, 14 when the time came for you to get up to speed on 15 what had occurred, you went to the individuals?
?
16 MR. REITER:
No.
I had a meeting with 17 the individuals, Mr. Cianfrani, ~who was their 18 supervisor, and Mr. Liden.
So I met with all of 19 them.
20 MR. LANNING:
Okay.
21 MR. WHITE:
At that time your only 22 awareness was what Cal Vondra had told you on 23 December 3rd, and you were out of the loop until 24 December 14th; is that right?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 1
MR. REITER:
Yes.
(
2 MR. LANNING:
And so this was the first t
3 opportunity that you had to come:up to speed was on 4
December 14th?
5 MR. REITER:
Yes.
That's where I tried 6
to learn what was going on.
7 MR. LANNING:
And you had not been 8
contacted by Mr. Miltenberger or anyone else prior 9
to that?
10 MR. REITER:
No.
As I said, I met on 11 the 16th with Mr. Vondra and several of his managers 12 to, in essence, hear then, listen to them, get their 13 perspective of what had transpired.
14 MR. WHITE:
Was Mr. Polizzi a part of 15 that group?
J l
16 MR. REITER:
He was part of that, yes.
17 Dased on what I learned from the meetings on the 18 14th and the 16th, and again on the 16th, Vondra 19 told me he had written a letter to me asking me to 20 remove the two individuals from the site and assign 21 them to other duties.
I told him then and I told 22 him repeatedly throughout the next month and a half 23 that I would not do that, that I didn't feel it was 24 appropriate or warranted.
The next --
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
i 3
1 MR. LANNING:
Before you leave that,
(
2 let me understand.
Vnndra was really outside your 3
chain of command, your line organization; is that 4
right?
5 MR. REITER:
That's correct.
6 MR. LANNING:
Why did you feel any 7
obligation at all to act upon Vondra's request?
8 MR. REITER:
I felt that I owed him a 9
response, but there was no -- I felt I had to do 10 what was appropriate.
And in this case I felt the 11 appropriate thing was that the individuals should 12 not be removed, that there is nothing that they did 13 that would warrant removing them from the site and l
14 assigning them to other duties.
4 15 MR. LANNING:
Did you discuss that with l
16 Mr. Miltenberger?
i 17 MR. REITER:
Subsequently, yes.
18 MR. LANNING:
Help me with the timing.
19 When you received the letter, did you immediately 1
20 take it to Miltenberger?
21 MR. REITER:
Well I first saw the 22 letter, and I think the date was the 21st of 23 December, the first time I saw the letter, I got it, copy from Miltenberger with a handwritten note 24 a
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I r
1 1
from him saying, you know, give me some background
(
2 on this.
I did not receive the actual letter until 3
I came back from Christmas vacation in early 1
4 January.
So the first time I saw the letter was j
i 5
just before Christmas when it arrived from 6
Miltenberger with a handwritten note on the top of 7
it asking me to give him some input.
8 MR. LANNING:
So when was the first did you ever discuss the letter with 9
time 10 Miltenberger?
11 MR. REITER:
In the course of the month 12 of January, yes.
What I did when I got his note on 13 the -- it was late in the day cn the 21st, I was 14 going to be out of the office on the 22nd and I knew 15 he was leaving for vacation himself.
I wrote him a 16 handwritten note, indicating that I was trying to 17 work with Vondra to resolve the issue, that I would 18 not remove the individuals, that I didn't think it 19 was warranted.
I left him a handwritten note 20 because he and I missed each other physically.
21 MS. SMITH:
Can I just clarify the 22 dates?
The company said earlier in their handout 23 that on December 22nd, you received a copy of the 24 letter from the CNO and on December 30th you ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
i i
1 1
received a formal transmittal.
Do those dates sound i
(
l 2
right to you in the sequence of --
4 3
MR. REITER:
The 22nd, yes.
I'm sorry, 4
4 the 21st -- the 22nd is when I got it from 5
Miltenberger.
The 30th is when it was received by 6
my secretary, 30th, and stamped in.
I was not in my 7
office on the 30th, I was on vacation, so I didn't 8
see it until after.he New Year, 9
MR. LANNING:
Had the contents of the 10 letter been discussed with you prior to you 11 receiving it?
12 MR. REITER:
The only content was in 13 the meeting on the 16th Vondra said he was asking me
~
14 to remove the two individuals from the site.
And I 15 told him I would not do that, that I didn't think it 16 was warranted or appropriate.
17 MR. WHITE:
And that first began about 18 December 16th, that's when you first started having 19 these series of meetings with Vondra?
20 MR. REITER:
That's correct.
21 MR. WHITE:
Was Mr. Vondra angry or 22 hostile or upset at that time?
23 MR. REITER:
I guess I would describe 24 it, again my perception, that it was an emotional l
1 ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I guess I wouldn't 4
1 issue with him.
He was not i
2 describe it as angry, but he was emotional about the 3
issue.
4 MR. LANNING:
What was his response to 5
you when you indicated you were not going to 6
reassign these individuals?
7 MR. REITER:
Merely to ask me to 8
reconsider it.
9 MR. LANNING:
Did he indicate that he 10 would go to your supervisor to try to make these 11 transfers effective?
12 MR. REITER:
No.
We agreed that we 13 needed to continue to meet to try and resolve it.
l 14 And at some point during our meetings, we agreed 15 that we would try one more time and then we would 16 escalate the issue.
17 MR. WHITE:
How many meetings do you 18 think you had with Mr. Vondra on this matter and 19 over what period of time, if you recall?
20 MR. REITER:
Well the meetings were 21 starting on the 16th and then several meetings and a 1
22 number of phone conversations throughout the month 23 of January.
I guess I don't recall exactly how many 24 meetings there were off the top of my head.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
/
4 1
MR. SATORIUS:
Did Mr. Vondra ever l
t 2
allude to the fact that in his view, the engineers 3
involved exhibited aberrant behavior?
Do you recall 4
that phrase?
[
5 MR. REITER:
He used those words, yes.
6 MR. SATORIUS:
What was your response 7
to that?
j 8
MR. REITER:
I told him that I didn't 9
view it as aberrant behavior.
10 MR. SATORIUS:
Okay.
11 MR. WHITE:
In the series of meetings 12 that you were having with him, was Mr. Vondra -- and 13 I take it they were all on this topic, these phone 14 calls and these meetings were all on this topic?
15 MR. REITER:
Yes, trying to i
16 MR. WHITE:
Did you perceive any 17 headway being made at all in terms of resolution of 6
18 this?
19 MR. REITER:
No.
i 20 MR. WHITE:
Why was that?
Why was no 21 headway made?
22 MR. REITER:
Well Mr. Vondra remained 23 adamant that he wanted the people reassigned.
And I 24 was equally -- in an equally strong position that I ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
4 1
didn't feel they had done anything inappropriate and
(
2 that they would not be reassigned.
3 When I say we didn'6 make headway, we 4
did not nake headway in that there were other 5
related issues, such as interpretation of NAP-6, the 6
incident report procedure that we talked dbout.
I 7
got a better understanding of how he was 8
interpreting it versus the way the Safety Review 9
engineers were interpreting it 10 I think I was able to show him that 11 there was a procedure that could be interpreted in 12 different ways.
But on that point, I said that as 13 far as I was concerned, the SRG engineers 14 interpreted it appropriately and what they were 15 trying to do was exactly what the procedure called 16 for.
17 MR. WH1TE:
Besides the meetings that 18 you'were having with Mr. Vondra, were there any 19 actions, were any other activities underway to bring 20 a resolution of this matter besides the meetings and 21 phone calls with Vondra?
22 MR. REITER:
No.
No.
I mean it was 23 between Vondra and I.
We agreed that we would try 24 and resolve the issues.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
4 1
MR. DOMBY:
If I could clarify, did you k
2 seek any assistance other than your own 3
MR. REITER:
Okay, I did go to an 4
Organizational Development Specialist in our HR 5
organization who I knew was already working with 6
Vondra and his team.
I asked her advice.
She 7
recommended that Cianfrani and I meet with the 8
with Vondra and talk to him and listen to try and 9
better understand his position.
She suggested a 10 joint meeting that she was willing to facilitate 11 with the parties.
And she also, in listening to the 12 assessment, agreed that from her perspective she 13 could see nothing that would warrant why I should 14 reassign these people.
15 MR. LANNING:
Why didn't you go to 16 Miltenberger for assistance?
17 MR. REITER:
I felt it was my 18 responsibility as a General Manager to try and 19 resolve the issue first.
And if I was not able to 20 resolve it at that point, I should escalate it.
21 Miltenberger was aware of the 22 situation.
He got my note.
We talked in January a 23 little bit about it.
So he was aware of the 24 situation.
He wcs aware that I was trying to I
,d ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
4 1
resolve it with Vondra.
\\
2 MR. WHITE:
So outside of this note, 5
3 the original note that Miltenberger sent you on the 4
letter, you did have a meeting with Miltenberger?
5 MR. REITER:
Well it was either a 6
meeting or phone conversation.
At some point he and 7
I talked about it.
8 MR. WHITE:
Was Mr. Miltenberger i
9 concerned about this issue?
10 MR. REITER:
I think he was concerned 11 MR. WHITE:
From your perception?
12 MR. REITER:
I think he was concerned, 13 yes.
If I can proceed with the other points in my 1
14 handout, on the first page, as I indicated, I felt 15 that the manner in which the people were trying to 16 use the incident report, the Safety Review people 17 it was appropriate.
I felt that they were following 18 the procedure.
19 We had some discussions both in a 20 meeting on the 16th and subsequently with Vondra 21 regarding the operability issue.
And my position 22 was the same as the Safety Review engineers, that 23 the procedure requires that the operability decision 24 be made by the Se'lior Shift Supervisor with whatever ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
5 1
technical input can be provided to him.
.I 2
MR. WHITE:
Why did this -- from your 3
understanding from talking to your SRG people, is it i
I 4
normal if an SRG goes on to an incident report that 5
they bring the incident report to the Operations 6
Manager?
7 MR. REITER:
If I remember what they 8
told me, no, it's not* normal, John.
If I remember 9
what the SRG engineers related to me, they first 10 identified the issue.
Mr. Williams -- Mr. Craig was i
11 acting supervisor that day because Cianfrani was g
12 offsite I think at some training.
13 They, before they even wrote it up, 14 they went and they talked to the Senior Shift j
15 Supervisor and discussed it with him.
He asked that 16 after they wrote it up if they would stop and talk 17 or give a copy of it to Mr. Polizzi, who I think was 18 covering for his Ops Engineer who was not available 19 that day.
Usually my understanding the Ops Engineer 20 would get involved in making assisting on the I
21 operability call.
The way the SRG engineers 1
22 characterized it, they decided they would stop by 23 Polizzi's office on their way to the shift to turn 24 it in.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 6
5 1
MR. WHITE:
So before they wrote it up,
(
2 they talked it over with the Shift Supervisor so the 3
Shift Supervisor knew what the issue was?
4 MR. REITER:
Yes.
5 MR. WHITE:
Then they wrote it up, and 6
as a courtesy of some type --
7 MR. REITER:
That's the way they
'8 described it to me, that as a courtesy --
9 MR. WHITE:
They were just going to 10 inform Mr. Polizzi that we have this matter and 11 we're going to process it, give it to your Shift 12 Supervisor?
13 MR. REITER:
Right, in accordance with 14 the procedure.
15 MR. WHITE:
That was their only -- in 16 your discussions with them, that was the only reason 17 to seek Pol.zzi?
18 MR. REITER:
That's !le way they 19 described it to me, yes.
Moving on, some points I'd 20 like to make.
I did not discipline the Safety 21 Review engineers.
I didn't think that what they did 22 in any way warranted discipline.
I felt that they 23 were trying to follow a procedure.
They interpreted 24 the procedure in what I viewed was an acceptable ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 i
5 1
fashion, and I did not find fault with what they
(
2 were trying to do by issuing the incident report.
3 Again, repeatedly I took the position 4
that I would not pull them out of the site and 5
reassign them because of the incident, both because 6
of the nature of the incident, that it didn't 7
warrant it, and also that it would establish a very, 8
very bad precedent.
Again, we highlighted from my 9
memo to Miltenberger on the 22nd where I told him 10 that I would not remove the individuals.
11 And then
.s e last bullet there, again 12 from my Day Timer notes, this was after one of the
)
13 final meetings with Vondra, that he was still 14 adamant tnat he would not withdraw his letter and 15 withdraw his request that I reassign them.
And I 16 was not going to remove the individuals.
17 MR. WHITE:
Just your opinion, but why 18 do you think Mr. Vondra was so locked into that and 1
19 would not back away from that action?
l 20 MR. REITER:
I guess I still to this 5
21 day do not understand why the incident became what i
22 it was.
I on't know why it was such an emotional 23 issue.
24 MR. WHITE:
Did Mr. Williams or Mr.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
. ~.. -...
.3 S'
1 Craig ever have other similar problems or heated t
2 discussions with Mr. Vondra before that you're aware 3
of?
4 MR. REITER:
Not that I'n aware of.
5 MR. WHITE:
Or any other SRG engineers?
t 6
MR. REITER:
Not that I'm aware of.
l 7
MR. WHITE:
Are your SRG engineers 8
fairly well respected in terms of yo'tr activities on 9
the Salem site?
10 MR. REITER:
I think they were i
11 generally respected, yes.
I had on a number of 12 occasions gotten positive feedback from Vondra.
And 1
13 on some other occasions I had gotten requests from 14 Vondra or some of his managers asking me to have 15 Safety Review investigate comething or look into a 16 particular issue.
So I took that as a sign that 17 there was a level of respect there.
18 MR. SATORIUS:
This might be a 19 difficult aus Lion to answer, but I'm going to ask 20 for your own view of the four people that are 21 involved here, two engineers, two managers in 22 Operations, were these easy people to get along 6
23 with, were they difficult people to get along with, 24 personality-wise, were they -- can you shed any ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
cb' and I understand it's your 6
1 insights that might 2
own view, we're not psychologists, but 3
MR. REITER:
I guess I can't speak a 4
lot about Mr. Craig, because this was really the 5
first time where I had a significant interface with 6
him.
He had been part of my organization, but he 7
was two layers away from me, so I never really had a 8
lot of interface with him.
9 Mr. Williams and I had some situations 10 in a General Manager-Engineer relationship before 11 regarding some what he felt were poor performance 12 evaluations, so we had had some involvement there.
13 He's an individual who believes in his convictions.
14 MR. SATORIUS:
When you said poor 15 performance appraisals l
16 MR. REITER:
He was unhappy with his 17 performance appraisal and he felt that it was 18 unwarranted.
So he started th ' ugh the company's 19 appeal process at that, point.
And one of his steps 20 along that appeal was to me as the General Manager.
21 MR. WHITE:
When did that occur 22 relative to this?
23 MR. REITER:
This was a year or two 24 prior.
Y ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 i
l 6
1 MR. WHITE:
This was before this?
(.
2 MR. REITER:
Yes, this was before he 3
was working in the Safety Review Group.
At that 4
point in time he was part of the Offsite Safety 5
Review Organization.
6 Mr. Vondra, my dealings with him, he 7
always was a relatively calm individual.
I would 8
say this was out of character from my involvement 9
with him.
10 Mr. Polizzi was, I guess I could somebody who was very emotional 11 characterize it as 12 at times.
He was somebody who spoke his feelings.
13 That's probably the best way I can characterize it.
14 MR. SATORIUS:
Thanks a lot.
15 MR. WHITE:
Before you continue, while 16 you were you did not receive you were aware on 17 December 16th that Vondra had sent this meno to you 18 requesting 19 MR. REITER:
No.
He told me he wrote a 20 letter.
He didn't tell me he sent it.
He told me 21 he wrote a letter.
22 MR. WHITE:
You received it on December 23 22nd?
24 MR. REITER:
I first saw Miltenberger's ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I 6_
1 copy on I think it was the 22nd of December.
(
2 MR. WHITE:
Were your SRG engineers 3
aware of that memo?
4 MR. REITER:
They were aware of rumors 5
that the memo existed.
a 6
MR. WHITE:
Do you have a feel for when 7
they first became aware of that memo?
8 MR. REITER:
I don't recall.
9 MR. WHITE:
Do you know how they might 10 have become aware of that memo?
11 MR. REITER:
I don't.
They may have 12 mentioned it in our meeting on the 14th.
I don't 13 recall specifically.
14 MR. WHITE:
Okay.
15 MS. SMITH:
Getting back to Mr.
16 Satorius' question, did you say how the 17 interpersonal relationships were with Vondra?
I 18 know you mentioned Williams, Craig and Polizzi.
19 MR. SATORIUS:
He touched all the 20 bases.
21 MR. REITER:
Mr. Vondra always was a 22 calm individual, so this was out of character from 23 my interactions with him.
24 MS. SMITH:
You said that about Craig ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
6 1
too?
I 2
MR. REITER:
Well Craig, this was the 3
first I really interacted with him.
4 MR. OLSHAN:
Prior to that, would you i
5 say there was a confrontational environment among 6
the four people, the two managers and the two SRG 7
engineers?
8 MR. REITER:
I don't think there was 9
regarding the two SRG engineers.
As I got involved 10 in this and in spending a lot of time with Mr.
11 Cianfrani, who was the Supervisor of the Safety 12 Review Group, he told me that he and Mr. Polizzi had had known each other for a long time and there 13 a
14 were many times when they disagreed with things and 15 they would yell at each other and then they would 16 reach a decision and shake hands and go on with 17 business.
Somewhat the nature of their 18 personalities.
19 When I hear, you know, the 20 confrontational attitudes, that's really the only 21 thing that I was aware of.
And I became aware of 22 that in the course of the month of January, December 23 and January.
Nothing was ever raised to me as the 24 General Manager that there was a problem.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
i l
6 1
MR. HOLODY:
When you were General u
i 2
Manager, how long were you in that position?
3 MR. REITER:
About three years.
4 MR. HOLODY:
Had you disciplined any 5
employees during that time?
6 MR. REITER:
Yes.
There was one 7
manager that I did follow the Corporate Positive 8
Discipline Program to a certain step.
9 MR. HOLODY:
I'm not interested in the a
10 name of the individual, but what was the 11 d.isciplinary action and what was it for?
12 MR. REITER:
There was an accusation i
13 that he made some inappropriate comments in a group 14 regard;ng a female employee.
And I counseled him 15 and took it to at that point the step where he was i
16 given a day with pay to go home and prepare a 17 program to improve his performance.
Which he came 18 back with a program, I monitored it carefully and he 19 did in fact make some significant improvements.
20 MR. HOLODY:
How about otner employees?
21 This was a manager who worked directly for you?
22 MR. REITER:
This was a manager who 23 worked directly for me.
24 MR. HOLODY:
How about any people in l
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
l
?
6 1
your organization being disciplined by the managers,
(
2 are you aware of any of those?
3 MR. REITER:
I can't,think of anything.
4 MR. HOLODY:
So the three years you 5
were there, how many people were under you in that 7
6 time, approximately?
7 MR. REITER:
A hundred to a hundred 20 8
people.
l 9
MR. HOLODY:
So this was the only 10 instance of any of.those people who were 11 disciplined?
12 MR. REITER:
That I can recall, i
13 MR. HOLODY:
That you can recall, 14 Regarding the comment by Mr. Williams regarding the 15 deficiency system, when did you first become aware 16 that such a comment was made?
17' MR. RElTER:
At the meeting on the 14th 13 of December I think he related it.
It was either 19 there or somewhere in the 14th, the 16th.
20 MR. HOLODY:
Mr. Williams related it?
21 MR. REITER:
I think he did.
I think 22 that's how I became aware of it.
23 MR. HOLODY:
And do you recall what he l
24 specifically stated regarding it, what he said?
l 1
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 I
7 1
MR. REITERe His words were to the i
2 effect of, as he desc. aed it, when Vondra asked him 3
to file a deficiency, a DEF, that he had used the 4
system once and he didn't think it worked and ho 5
didn't trust it.
Those were the words that he told 6
me he used, that he didn't trust the process.
7 MR. HOLODY:
And when you drafted a 8
letter to Mr. Williams, when did you do that?
9 MR. REITER:
That was sometime in 10 January.
I don't recall the specific date.
The 11 22nd of January.
12 MR. HOLODY:
And you did not or how did 13 you view such a letter when you drafted it?
I mean 14 did you were you reprimanding him for that 15 comment?
16 MR. REITER:
I was pointing out in that 17 letter that I did not think it was appropriate for a 18 Safety Review engineer to be making a statement like 19 that, that he did not trust the process, that he had 20 an obligation if he had a problem with a 21 particular process onsite, he had an obligation,
.e particularly being the Safety Review engineer to go 23 through the appropriate processes and raise those 24 issues.
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
7 1
MR. HOLODY:
So what did you expect of
(
2 Mr. Williams, what should he have done with respect 3
to his concern?
4 MR. REITER:
You mean what do I think 5
he should have done?
6 MR. HOLODY:
Right.
7 MR. REITER:
If in fact he had a 8
problem with a procedure, there were mechanisms in I
9 place that he should have raised those issues.
If 10 he felt that a procedure such as the Deficiency 11 Evaluation Process was not timely, was not acting as 12 appropriate, he had an obligation to raise those 1
13 issues.
1 14 MR. HOLODY:
To?
i 15 MR. REITER:
Several ways.
He could i
16 have raised it through the -- directly to the i
17 sponsor of that process who was someone in 18 engineering, I don't recall who.
He could have 19 raised it through his own management.
There were a 20 number of vehicles that were available to him to 21 raise those issues.
22 MR. WHITE:
You had drafted that memo, 23 but what was your reason for not sending it?
24 MR. REITER:
I met with Mr. Cianfrani, ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) _272-6731
]
7 1
one of a series of meetings that he and I had, and
(
2 we talked about it.
And as a result of that 3
meeting, I decided that it was not appropriate, it 4
was not needed, and so I never issued the memo.
5 MR. HOLODY:
Was that something Mr.
6 Cianfrani said in the meeting that convinced you?
7 MR. REITER:
I don't recall the context 8
of the meeting, but as a result of that meeting, I 9
know I decided that --and I'm sure he provided me I decided that it was 10 some valuable input on it 11 not appropriate, that I would not issue the letter.
12 MR. WHITE:
So as far as you're 13 concerned, that letter remained just as a draft?
14 MR. REITER:
That's all it ever was was 15 a draft.
16 MR. WHITE:
And you forgot about it?
17 MS. SMITH:
But you don't remember why i
18 it wasn't appropriate?
Do you remember why it was 1
i 19 not appropriate to send the letter?
20 MR. REITER:
Because I felt that the --
21 What I was trying to present there, that the letter I
22 was probably, too strong an approach.
I 1
23 subsequently, in another meeting with Mr. Williams, 24 I discussed it with him and told him my feelings on i
l ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
l 7
1 it.
And that's where it really remained.
It was
.(
2 not a reprimand, it was providing him some feedback 3
on his performance, and that's why I provided it to 4
him verbally.
I felt that was the appropriate way 5
to handle it.
I'm sorry Dan, 6
MR. WHITE:
Was there 7
go ahead.
8 MR. HOLODY:
You've talked about the 9
concern you had with Mr. Williams' statements 10 regarding the DEF process.
11 MR. REITER:
Yes.
12 MR. HOLODY:
Can you elaborate on the 13 second concern that you had articulated in this 14 draft memo?
It says that -- I guess I'll quote from 15 this draft memo from yourself, L.A.
Reiter, to Bert 16 Williams, "My second concern deals with your 17 statements regarding the Quality Safety Concerns i
18 Form.
I understand your position as to why you 1
19 refer to it, however given what was the obvious l
20 volatility of the situation at the time, I can 21 understand how it could have been taken as a threat 22 by Mr. Vondra.
It would have been more appropriate 23 to either left that option unsaid or to state that 24 you would like to discuss the situation with your ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
7 1
. management and ask them to get involved."
Did you I
2 discuss that issue with Mr. Williams?
1 3
MR. REITER:
No, I did not.
1 i
4 MR. HOLODY:
Do you believe that was 5
appropriate?
I realize you didn't send this memo, 8
6 but what you articulated in that draft memo, would 7
that have been appropriate to do that?
8 MR. REITER:
Would what have been 4
9 appropriate, to send this to him?
10 MR. HOLODY:
What you said there in 11 that particular memo regarding this draft memo 12 regarding what your concern was with Mr. --
i i
13 MR. REITER:
Okay, the little 14 background.
This item really came from the
)
15 statement that Vondra made that he felt threatened 16 by Williams when he made this statement.
I 17 subsequently contacted Jay Bailey from the 18 Engineering Department, who was present at that 19 meeting, and I ast.ed him if it could have been 20 construed as a threat.
And he thought about it and 21 he said yeah, he could see where it could have been 22 taken as a threat.
And that's probably where I 23 started to come from here.
But then as I thought 24 about it, as I got feedback from Mr. Cianfrani and ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
4 1
subsequently thought about it some more and decided t
2 it was not appropriate, it was not something that I 3
was going to issue and was not going to get into the 4
second piece of this.
5 MR. HOLODY:
So you were basically 6
collecting your thoughts on paper?
7 MR. REITER:
Yes.
8 MR. HOLODY:
And trying to see if it 9
made sense?
10 MR. REITER:
That's a very good 11 characterization.
I did that a lot.
I would put my 12 thoughts down and then deliberate on it and see 13 whether I felt it was appropriate.
14 MR. WHITE:
When did you finally 15 meet -- and you only met with Mr. Williams I take it 16 in terms of any counseling relative to this matter, 17 what was the context of that discussion?
18 MR. REITER:
I met with Mr. Williams, I 19 think it was on the 29th of January.
And from my 20 notes there were three things that I wanted to 21 discuss with him.
One -- and this was subsequent to 22 his filing his letter with Mr. Doherty -- I wanted 23 to discuss with him what I had learned from Vondra 24 regarding his interpretation of NAP-6 and just to ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
.c 8
1 make him aware of that.
I wanted to get his feeling I
2 on whether, given at this point in time a lot of 3
technical issues, if I remember correctly, were 4
resolved, whether he felt that the incident report i
5 was still appropriate or needed.
6 I wanted to talk to him about the idea 7
of a facilitated meeting, facilitated by the 8
Crganizational Development Specialist.
And then I 9
also discussed with him the fact that I didn't think 10 it was appropriate for him to have made the conna nt 11 he did about not trusting the DEF process.
And we 12 talked about that a little bit.
So those were the 13 points that I was trying to make in that meeting.
14 MR. WHITE:
How did he receive your 15 comments?
16 MR. REITER:
He was, if I remember, 17 fairly ambivalent about the facilitated meeting.
He 18 felt that the incident report still should be filed.
19 MR. WHITE:
At that time, this report 20 had still not been filed, January 29th?
21 MR. REITER:
I don't think so.
No.
I 22 don't recall specifically, but I don't think it was.
1 23 MR. WHITE:
Did you know what the issue 24 was in this incident repert?
i ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
1 8
1 MR. REITER:
Yes.
There were several
(
2 isasues.
3 MR. WHITE:
From your reading of that 4
incident report, was the issue a safety related 5
issue?
6 MR. REITER:
It involved safety related 7
equipment.
There was a question as to whether what 8
was installed actually in the plant was qualified.
9 And there was also a question regarding the MMIS, 10 Maintenance Information System, the information that 11 was in there, whether that was correct.
12 MR. WHITE:
So the incident report or 13 the characterization of the matter that Mr. Williams 14 identified was in fact a good finding as far as 15 you're concerned?
16 MR. REITER:
Absolutely, yes.
It was a 17 valid issue.
18 MR. WHITE:
As a QA Manager, knowing 19 that that incident report was first filed on 20 December 3rd or 4th and still had not been resolved 21 as of January 29th, and if you regard that as a 22 safety significant matter, how did you base your 23 rationale that this matter was still unresolved?
24 MR. REITER:
There was technical work I
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
8 1
going on by the Engineering Department,
\\
2 investigating the qualification of the equipment and 3
investigating why what was installed was different 4
from the drawings.
So there was work ongoing by the 5
Engineering Department to resolve those issues.
And 6
I had gotten feedback from Engineering regarding the 7
fact that what was installed was in fact qualified.
8 MR. WHITE:
So independent of the 9
incident report, your understanding was that the 10 issue itself was in fact being worked in the field?
11 MR. REITER:
Within Engineering, yes.
12 MR. WHITE:
Within Engineering.
13 MR. LANNING:
Did Mr. Williams, Mr.
14 Craig or anybody else indicate to you that they were 15 dissatisfied with the manner in which you were 16 handling this issue?
well the 17 MR. REITER:
Subsequent to 18 first I got the feedback from Mr. Williams was in 19 his letter to Mr. Doherty.
20 MR. LANNING:
Is that the only feedback 21 you received about your handling of the issue?
22 Mh. REITER:
I don't remember any other 23 specific feedback from Craig or Williams.
I met 24 with them several times.
I tried to keep then th ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 e
8 1
informed of what was happening with the attempts to
(
2 resolve it.
I told them that I was not removing 4
3 them from the site, that they were staying in the 4
same position and what I expected of them in terms j
9 5
of continuing to perform their duties.
6 MR. WHITE:
Did you ever meet, finally 7
meet with Mr. Miltenberger and discuss this impasse 1
8 that you and Cal Vondra arrived at?
r 9
MR. REITER:
Yes, I did.
And it was 1
10 really subsequent to the letter that was filed to 11 Doherty, Vondra and I had reached a point where we 12 were -- we had agreed we would try one more time and 13 then we would escalate it, and at the same time 14 period is when the letter was submitted to Doherty.
15 MR. WHITE:
So did you ever meet with 16 Mr. Miltenberger?
17 MR. REITER:
Yes, subsequent to that i
18 date, the letter of the, whatever it was, the 27th.
1 19 MR. WHITE:
Was that meeting because of 20 the letter from Doherty or was it a meeting that 21 would have been scheduled anyway relative to your 22 involvenent?
23 MR. REITER:
It had not been scheduled.
24 It was precipitated by the letter to Doherty.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
9 1
MR. WHITE:
And what was discussed at
(
.2 that time?
I take it at the time of this meeting 3
you and Mr. Vondra were still at an impasse.
You 4
had not reconciled how to deal with this problem at 5
that point.
What was discussed at the meeting with 6
Mr. Miltenberger?
7 MR. REITER:
I don't recall the 8
specifics, but I know I talked about what had 9
transpired, what I had tried to accomplish with 10 Vondra, and the fact that we were still at an 11 impasse.
12 MR. DOMBY:
If you'd like some detail, 13 maybe f Larry could review his Day Timer notes, 14 would that be helpful?
15 MR. WHITE:
If he can recall, you know.
16 MR. DOMBY:
Right, I'm just -- the 17 detail, sometime notes can help.
18 MR. WHITE:
That's fine, sure.
Let's 19 go off the record.
20 (Off the record discussion.)
I 1
21 MR. DOMBY:
Just to be clear, the issue 22 you're asking about is the harassment / intimidation, 23 that's the issue we're talking about?
24 MR. WHITE:
Right.
a ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
I 1
l 9
1 MR. DOMBY:
Okay.
(
2 MR. REITER:
Okay, on the 4th of 3
- February, I,
Vondra, Miltenberger,and Chuck Johnson, 4
who was providing some staff assistance to 5
Miltenberger at that point, met.
And my notes 6
characterize the discussion on how to close out the 7
loose ends.
Miltenberger indicated that he expected 8
a written response on the deficiency by the 5th.
9 This was on the 4th.
That the Station Technical 10 Manager and his involved Engineering Manager would 11 meet with the Safety Review Group to explain the 12 deficiency resolution and hopefully satisfy them on 13 closure of the technical issues.
14 We got into a discussion of the comment 15 that was made by the Salem Station Management that 16 the Safety Review Group frequently votes no on the 17' Station Operation Review Committee, SORC.
And in 18 fact the comment was made somewhere along the line 19 that Craig always votes no.
So he asked for some 20 information on that, which I had already asked i
21 Cianfrani and his counterpart at Hope Creek to j
i 22 develop.
23 We talked a little bit about the 24 strained relationship between Safety Review and the i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
Y 9
1 station managers, did some brainstorming on
(
2 potential ways to resolve that, which included some 3
team building, Vondra withdrawing his letter, 4
parties clearly understand responsibilities, clarify 5
NAP-6, a number cf items.
We could not get everyone 6
to agree on all of the items as a result of that 7
meeting.
And my notes show Vondra felt the only 8
thing would be discipline is appropriate for all 9
parties.
So that's what transpired at the meeting 10 on the 4th.
Il MR. WHITE:
You indicated you had 12 discussed strained relationships between SRG and 13 plant management?
14 MR. REITER:
Yes.
And then as I said, 1
j 15 we brainstormed, the four of us, on potential ways 16 to improve tt t relationship.
i l
17 MR. WHITE:
Was that in the context of j
18 this specific event or more global than that?
Were 19 there other indications of strained relationships?
20 MR. REITER:
No, it was really in 21 context of what occurred in this event.
22 MR. LANNING:
Was the subject of 23 intimidation discussed during that meeting?
24 MR. REITER:
No, I don't recall it l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 l
9 1
being discussed at all.
(
2 MR. LANNING:
Was Vondra's memorandum 3
discussed?
4 MR. REITER:
I don't recall whether it 5
was or not.
It was -- yeah, one of the options was 6
for him to withdraw the letter.
So we obviously 7
discussed it somewhat.
I don't recall to what 8
extent.
9 MR. LANNING:
How often did you meet 10 with Mr. Miltenberger?
Do you have any periodic 11 meetings with him?
12 MR. REITER:
We tried to have weekly 13 meetings.
Given schedules, they didn't happen all 14 the time, but he and I tried to meet periodically.
15 MR. LANNING:
From December to the end 16 of January, did you have any of these weekly 17 meetings?
1 18 MR. REITER:
I don't recall whether we 1
19 did or not.
Given the schedules in December, I l
20 don't think we did, because between his vacation 21 schedule and mine and my being on the SERT team, we 22 probably didn't.
In January, I don't recall.
23 MR. LANNING:
Would your planner be 24 able to tell you that?
ALL POINTS REPORTING (61C) 272-6731
,w
'9 1-MR. REITER:
Yeah, if I had the
(
2 meeting, unless it was something that came up, you 3
know, in passing where we would sit down efter 10 4
another meeting, at which point I probably would not 5
have noted it.
But I don't recall from my planner 6
whether we did or didn't meet in there.
7 Of course, we met each week for staff 8
meetings, but they were not nocessarily one-on-one 9
conversations.
I auess I see January 12th he and I 10 met'on another subject, preparing for a NOC meeting, 11 Nuclear Oversight Committee meeting.
12 MR. WHITE:
Relative to the issue that 13 we're here to discuss, Mr. Reiter, why is it that 14
-you feel, believe, that your activities, actions, 15 should not or are not a violation of 10 CFR 50.7, 16 that you did not get involved-in activities relative 17 to harassment and intimidation?
18 MR. REITER:
I felt that throughout 19 this whole time period I was supporting the Safety 20 Review engineers.
I never questioned their 21 submittal.
In fact I supported their submittal or 22 attempt to submit the incident report as the 23 appropriate action.
I refused to move them and 24 reassign them.
I didn't think that they had done ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
~-
+
~ >.
a.
i i
l 10 1
anything to warrant that and did not think it was k
2 appropriate.
3 So throughout all of this, I was 4
attempting to support them and attempting to 5
reestablish a level of interface and an effective i
6 interface between the Safety Review Group and the l
7 Salem station management.
8 I don't see that I did anything in here 9
that in any way was negative toward these 10 individuals.
I provided Mr. Williams some feedback 11 regarding his performance, i.e.,
the statement that 12 he made regarding the DEF process.
I did not think 13 that that was appropriate for someone in his 14 independent oversight position to be making a 15 statement like that, that he didn't trust a process.
16 MR. LANNING:
You may have said this, 17 excuse me, but did you hear the statement or were 18 you told that by a second party?
19 MR. REITER:
I was told that by Mr.
20 Williams.
l 21 MR. LANNING:
He told you directly that 22 he didn't trust the system?
23 MR. REITER:
Yes.
He related on I 24 think it was on the 14th, when they were relating l
j ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
)
10 1
what happened on the third, that he told Vondra l
2 that Vondra asked him to submit a deficiency -- a 3
DEF, and he told me that he didn't trust the process 4
because he had tried it once and he didn't -- wasn't 5
happy with the results.
6 MR. WHITE:
What is your assessment 7
then as to what went wrong in this case?
8 MR. REITER:
As I indicdted earlier, I 9
still don't understand why this particular incident 10 report resulted in what it did.
I do not understand 11 why it became such an emotional issue with Mr.
12 Polizzi or Mr. Vondra.
l 13 MR. WHITE:
Your SRGs I take it had 14 filed other incident reports in the past?
15 MR. REITER:
Yes, sure.
16 MR. WHITE:
That were of the type that 17 if an operability decision was made in the negative, 18 that is that required it be determined as an 19 inoperable system, you know, that had been acce'pted?
20 MR. REITER:
I don't recall whether 21 they specifically identified anything that was 22 declared inoperable or the plant was declared 23 inoperable because of it, but yes, they submitted a 24 number of incident reports.
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
10 1
MR. WHITE:
I'm sorry to ruin your
(
2 chain of concentration, but you were describing your 3
assessment as to what went wrong.
4 MR. REITER:
Well, you know, as I said, 5
I do not understand even to this day why it resulted 6
in what it did.
It was obviously something that 7
became a personal issue with some people.
Why, I 8
don't know.
9 MR. DOMBY:
Mr. White asked you do you 10 know what caused it.
Do you have any reason to 11 believe that the substance of the concern, that is 12 the regulators and that caused this conflict as 13 opposed to the interpersonal issues causing this 14 conflict?
15 MR. REITER:
Do I believe that the j
16 MR. DOMBY:
Do you have any 17 observations on whether this was caused because of 18 the' merits of the concern?
19 MR. REITER:
I don't know.
20 MS. SMITH:
Although you didn't discuss 21 the second part of this draft memo with Mr.
22 Williams, do you know if he ever got a copy of this 23 draft memo?
24 MR. REITER:
As far as I know, he did ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
=_-
1 10 1
not.
I had the only copy and I destroyed it, k
2 MR. SATORIUS:
But it did exist on 3
somebody's hard drive.
4 MS. SMITH:
On Ms. Hatton's computer.
5 MR. REITER:
I think my secretary had 6
it on her disk or something, but there were no other 7
hard copies.
8 MR. BARBER:
One thing I was trying to 9
understand, I think you said earlier on the 16th you 10 had met with Vondra and Polizzi, and Vondra told you 11 about the letter and also about the content of t'0 i
12 letter in that he recommended that you remove or 13 reassign the Safety Review Group engineers to other s
14 positions.
I think you articulated that you were
\\
15 not in favor of that approach.
You disagreed with 16 that approach.
This was on December 16th.
l 17 And yet at some time in January, it lb appeared that you wrote a letter that had a kind of 19 a reprimanding type tone to it.
I was trying to 20 understant that, the apparent difference there.
21 Because you're telling Vondra in one case that no, 11 22 you're not going to take action against the 23 engineers, and at some later point in time you're 24 almost reprimanding them on the record, so to speak.
l i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
11 1
MR. REITER:
But the items that were in i
k 2
that letter that I was contemplating, no way would 3
have resulted or I would have even thought of I
4 removing them.
It was a performance feedback.
So 5
it was consistent all the way through.
I would not i
6 remove them.
I didn't think that that was 7
appropriate.
I contemplated sending them a letter, 8
a letter to Mr. Williams providing some specific 9
performance feedback.
That's not anywhere close 10 to removing him from a position or reassigning 11 him.
12 MR. BARBER:
Was this at all related to t
13 any of the previous interactions you had had with
[
14 him over his past performance appraisals?
You said 15 you had had some previous interaction about him 16 appealing performance appraisals due to 17 interpersonal skills.
Was this building on a 18 perception that he had?
19 MR. REITER:
No.
In fact as a result 20 of that previous situation, he attended an 21 interpersonal skills training program.
And the 22 feedback that Mr. Liden told me he was getting, 23 particularly from Mr. Ciarfrani, was that Williams' l
24 performance was good, that he was interacting well I
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 1
a.
]
l 11 1
with people.
So I felt that he had made 2
improvements in that area, and that was the feedback 3
that I was getting through Liden.
4 MR. LANNING:
Have you gotten thra"nh 5
your presentation?
I know we've interrupted a 6
number of times.
7 MR. REITER:
If I could just touch on 8
some of the bullets on the third page.
The 9
agreements with some broad criticism on the meeting 10 on the 16th that I had with Vondra and most of his 11 managers.
They threw out a number of other issues, 12 particularly the SORC voting issue, and I disagreed L
l i 13 with those.
And subsequent data showed that the i
14 SORC voting issue was not in fact accurate in any 4
15 way.
16 MR. WHITE:
I'm sorry, what was that 17 SORC voting issue?
18 MR. REITER:
They raised the comment 19 that SRG always votes no at SORC meetings.
20 MR. WHITE:
And what does that mean?
1 21 How did you read that?
22 MR. REITER:
Well I took it for what he 23 had said.
At SORC meetings, at which there are a 24 number, th5t the word "always" I didn't take as 4
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 9
..; - = _,
I i
31 1
always but as frequently, SRG would be a lone
(
2 negative vote.
And subsequently, as we got data, 3
that was not the case.
4 At that meeting, they made comments 5
about Mr. Craig voting no.
And in the time period 6
they were talking about, if I remember looking at f
i 7
the data, he didn't attend any meetings or only 8
attended one meeting.
So it was just they were 9
criticisms that were unwarranted.
10 Throughout this, I was trying to 11 address the interpersonal conflicts.
I viewed SRG's l
12 role as very important at the station, and was l
13 trying to reestablish the relationships between SRG I
14 and the station.
On several occasions I met with 15 Human Resources for advice.
And we highlighted here 16 some of the things that they provided to me.
They i
17 suggested that on a couple of occasions that we meet j
18 and talk, once with Vondra alone and subsequently 19 talked about having a facilitated meeting to try and 20 improve relationships.
They suggested that I 21 continually provide feedback to the SRG engineers on 22 what was going on.
Good advice I've tried to 23 follow.
24 As I indicated, what I discussed with ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 1
l
_ =.. _ _. _ - -
i
'1 1
Williams was feedback, performance feedback.
It was 2
not a reprimand, it was not counseling.
It was not 3
part of the Formal Positive Discipline Program.
It 4
was strictly performance feedback.
5 MR. WHITE:
Had there been anything on I
6 his record because of this?
7 MR. REITER:
Absolutelf not.
It was a 8
verbal discussion that we held, and that was it.
9 Certainly I didn't think that the -- his comment on 10 not trusting the DEF process was a protected 11 activity or me providing him feedback in any way was 12 violating 50.7.
13 MR. WHITE:
Would you have made the 14 same counseling to him or the same feedback to him 15 had he made that comment absent this other issue?
16 MR. REITER:
Yes.
I mean if he would 17 have just IJade the comment to me in another 18 conversation, I would have provided him the same l
19 feedback.
20 Again in summary, I do not feel that in 21 any way I was anything but supportive to the Safety 22 Review engineers.
I felt they were following the 1
23 appropriate procedure.
They were trying to do j
24 their job.
And in addition to the technical issue, i
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
~
i 11 1
I was concerned with reestablishing a good,
(
2 effective working relationship between SRG and the 3
plant operating staff, because o f: what I viewed as 4
the importance of their role.
5 MR. 'ANNING:
Did you receive any 6
disciplinary action associated with your handling of 7
these activities?
8 MR. REITER:
I was counseled by Mr.
9 Miltenberger and told that I should have escalated 10 sooner than I did.
And that the quality safety 11 concern that Mr. Williams filed, that I should have, 12 rather than trying to resolve it myself, should have 13 turned it over to another organization to try and that was the 14 resolve.
And that was the result of 15 discipline that was taken with me.
16 MR. LANNING:
Nothing written?
12 17 MR. REITER:
I understand there was a 18 letter written to ny file.
I don't recall being 19 given a letter.
I recall just a verbal discussion 20 with Mr. Miltenberger.
21 MR. LANNING:
Do you knov if there's
)
22 such a letter in your file?
as far as 1 23 MR. REITER:
I have 24 know, I've been told that there is.
But I have not l
ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
w 12 1
seen it.
I no longer work at the company, so I
(
2 don't even know if my file still exists.
6 3
MR. LANNING:
Can you share with us the 4
reasons for your leaving the company?
Is it ra1=ted 5
to any of these events we've been discussing here 6
today?
7 MR. REITER:
As far as I know, it was 8
not.
Last July, there was a reduction, 50 or 60 9
people who were eliminated from the organization.
10 My position was eliminated.
11 MR. LANNING:
Isn't your position 12 required by the --
13 MR. REITER:
No, I was not --
14 MR. WHITE:
His position at the time 15 was different.
16 MR. REITER:
At the time when I was 17 terminated, I was Director of Process Improvement.
18 MR. WHITE:
Following along with Mr.
19 Lanning's question, your removal from General 20 Manager of Quality Assurance and Nuclear Safety 21 Review to your new position, in your perception, was 22 that related to any of these events here?
23 MR. REITER:
From what I was told, no, 24 it was not.
I was told by Mr. Miltenberger that ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
s 12 1
there were a number of moves that were going to be
(
2 made at the time, and those moves were Mr. Hagan 1
3 became the Vice President of Nuclear Operations, Mr.
4 LaRruna moved into Vice President of Nuclear 5
Engineering.
And the words that Miltenberger used 6
with me was I'm going to move Swanson, who was in 7
charge of Engineering at that point, into QA Safety 8
Review.
And I then became the Director of Process 9
Improvemene.
10 MR. LANNING:
So that reorganization 11 took place prior to December?
12 MR. REITER:
No, that took place in l,
13 April of '93 I think was the time period, somewhere 1
14 in there.
15 MR. HOLODY:
And you remained with the 1
36 company until when?
17 MR. REITER:
Until July of
'94.
18 MR. HOLODY:
Are you currently doing 19 any activitien associated with nuclear related i
20 activities?
21 MR. REITER:
I am currently working as 22 a management consultant.
I would prefer not to go 23 on the record to discuss who I'm working for, but I 24 am a management consultant involved in the area of ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
32 1
process improvament, process reengineering.
Some of f
(
2 our clients are utilities, some nuclear utilities, 3
some non-nuclear utilities.
But the work is focused 4
on business process improvement, business process 5
reengineering.
6 MR. SATORIUS:
So your current employer 7
is not an NRC licensee?
8 MR. REITER:
That is correct.
9 MR. LANNING:
Having sat through this 10 morning's meeting with PSE&G, is there anything'that 11 was said or stated that you'd like to comment on at L
12 this time?
13 MR. REITER:
Let me just look at my 14 notes from this morning.
The only points that I had 15 noted was the reassignment and then my subsequent i
16 termination, in neither case was this particular 17 incident indicated as being a reason.
18 No, I dcn't think I had any other 19 comments.
20 MR. LANNIIIG :
Was your past performance j
21 an issue in the reason your job was abolished?
22 MR. REITER:
My history of performance 23 evaluations were all good.
The position of Director 24 of Process Improvement was eliminated, and 1 think ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
. - =
av 32 1
there was a general change in philosophy that was b
2 getting away from the long term process improvement.
3 MR. LANNING:
Did you feel that you had i
4 contributions to make to the company, that maybe you 5
should have been reassigned?
Or how did you take 6
this I guess is what I'm getting to.
7 MR. REITER:
Well the initial reaction 8
is always one of going through dealing with the 9
anger and the feeling of hurt.
Subsequent to that, 10 I viewed it as a good opportunity for me to do, to 11 move into a different field, which is something that 12 I had been contemplating for the previous year.
I i
13 saw the value of the reengineering and process 14 improvement work, and I saw it at work and I had 15 decided that that was really a career move that I 16 was contemplating making anyhow, and this was just 17 kind of an impetus to move me along.
18 MR. SATORIUS:
So you don't figure you 19 got torpedoed by this whole --
20 MR. REITER:
At one point I did file an 21 age discrimination claim with the company after I 22 had been out of work for awhile.
That's been 23 subsequently in the process of being resolved.
But 24 looking at it now, I am very happy with my new ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
ou 4
i 1
12 1
career choice.
And I'm perfectly satisfied with my
(
2 life at this point.
3 MR. SATORIUS:
Thank you.
i 4
MR. BARBER:
A question on your l
l 5
reaction to Mr. Vondra.
Mr. Vondra, I believe on 6
the 16th, told you that he was going to send you a 7
letter that said you should remove the two engineers 8
from duty.
9 MR. REITER:
- Yes, t
10 MR. BARBER:
He told you verbally and 11 then the letter did follow.
I guess primarily from 12 Mr. Miltenberger first and you subsequently received copy sometime after the New Year?
13 a
14 MR. REITER:
Yes.
15 MR. BARBER:
You in turn I think in 16 your earlier discussions identified the fact that 17 you told Mr. Vondra that you were not in favor of 13 18 terminating and/or transferring individuals.
Did 19 you also respond by sending him a memorandum or 20 anything of that nature clearly articulating your 21 support of SRG engineers?
22 MR. REITER:
No, I did not respond in 23 writing.
And in Det: ember I had not seen his letter.
24 So I thought that hs -- it was another case where he ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 (1D
ol 11 1
talked about it, he may have written and decided not 2
to issue it.
3 MR. BARBER:
Did you feel obliged to 4
did you even consider responding to it via a 5
memorandum?
Because you subsequently did receive it 6
in January.
Did you ever consider, either in 7
January or February or some other time, responding 8
to that formally?
9 MR. REITER:
I don't recall whether I 10 considered writing him back.
I believe I made it 11 very clear to him that I was not going to follow his 12 wishes.
I was not going to remove the people.
I 13 was not going to reassign them.
14 MR. WHITE:
Do you have any other 15 statements or anything else you want to provide to 16 us?
17 MR. REITER:
No, I don't think so.
18 MR. WH.TE:
Dan, do you have anything?
19 MR. HOLODY:
Yeah, I guess I would just 20 summarize that you were in attendance at the meeting 21 this morning with PSE&G, but basically the same 22 process applies.
We'll take into consideration our 23 investigation report, the investigation report the 24 utility did and the information you provided us ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
62 33 1
today, and we'll make a decision on appropriate
(
2 enforcement, what if any action we need to take with 3
respect to you as an individual.
4 Our options are probably five-fold.
We 5
can do nothing.
We could issue a letter of 6
reprimand.
We could issue a notice of violation to 7
you as an individual, issue a civil penalty to you 8
as an individual.
We could issue an order that 9
would prohibit or restrict your involvement in NRC 10 activities or activities that would somehow be 11 related to what we regulate.
12 We'll make that decision and let you i
13 know by correspondence and give you a call also when 14 it's forthcoming.
If it turns out that we do 15 nothing, you more than likely will get a letter from 16 us saying that our involvement in this matter is 17 closed.
If we do something, then you'll get what 18 that particular something is.
19 MR. REITER:
Okay.
20 MR. HOLODY:
Any questions on that?
21 MR. REITER:
No.
22 MR. WHITE:
As you know, Mr. Vondra 23 isn't here today, we'll be doing him on the 24th, so 24 I do not anticipate that we will come to a decision ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731
63 13
'l until after we conference with Mr. Vondra.
(
2 That being the case, I appreciate your 3
attendance and the attendance of your representative 4
today.
It's been very helpful to us in providing 5
the information that you did.
6 MR. REITER:
Appreciate the 7
opportunity.
8 MR. WHITE:
Off the record.
9 (Proceedings closed.)
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 l
64 13 CERTIFICATION I,
Loretta B.
Devery, do hereby certify
...ut the testimony and proceedings in the foregoing matter, taken on Februaiy 8,
1995, are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me and that it is a true and correct transcript of the same.
[$f1
',0 b M.2pl.
LORETTA B.
DEVERY, R PF/ -
.... ~........,
.~
l L?.
f
,a -
c The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.
1 ALL POINTS REPORTING (610) 272-6731 l' ~
4 pusuq gi k
UNITED STATES g4, g
NUCLEAR REGULATO84Y COMMISSIOly e-Rtoios i
,/[
475 ALLENDALE ROAD o,
KING OF PRUSSIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19406-1415 April 11, 1995 EA 94-239 Mr. Lawrence Reiter l
HOME ADORESS DELETED i
UNDER 2.790
SUBJECT:
ENFORCEMENT CONFERENCE (NRC OI INVESTIGATION 1-93-021R)
Dear Mr. Reiter:
On February 8,1995, the NRC conducted an enforcement conference with you in the Region I office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, to discuss the circumstances associated with your possible harassment and intimidation (H&I) of a former SRG l
engineer in your organization when you were the General Manager - Quality Assurance and Nuclear Safety Review. The conference was based on the finding of 4
an NRC investigation by the Office of Investigations (01) which concluded that you may have contributed to the H&I of the individual in support of other 1
managers. A copy of the 01 synopsis of the investigation was forwarded to you on January 11, 1995.
At the enforcement conference, you denied that you harassed or intimidated any of the individuals involved. After further evaluation of this matter by the NRC, l
we find that there is no basis to conclude that you took any action in support of other managers relative to removing the individuals from involvement in Salem activities, nur did you create or actively contribute to a hostile environment or engage in H&I with regard to these individuals.
Consequently, the NRC has
~
determined that no enforcement action is warranted on this matter with regard to your actions.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.790 of the NRC's " Rules of Practice," a copy of this letter will be placed in the NRC Public Document Room with your address deleted.
A copy of this letter is also being provided to the President and Chief Executive Officer of PSE&G.
2 Sincerely, Thomas T. Martin Regional Administrator 1
i i
i 94/Z64D?ZJ /p-