ML20138M728
| ML20138M728 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Millstone  |
| Issue date: | 05/24/1996 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9702260039 | |
| Download: ML20138M728 (104) | |
Text
.
v/-Wav
@fflolel Tran03ript of Precacdinga NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Interview of Don Miller i
i Docket Number: (not assigned) i
! l 1
l j Location: Waterford, CT !
i :
- i i !
2 i j Date: May 24,1996 l i
l '}
,' l f)(N' b '
- Work Order No.
- NRC-679 Pages 1-99 J
s j W / z ; * *;* * ?
i l
) '
NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 4
1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 1
(202) 23m33 260013 ,
! 9702260039 960527 i PDR ADOCK 0500024h T pm
r ,.
a
- l
. 1 1 .
l ADDENDUM TO NTERVEW OP- D+s A N4t i
(Name/ Position)
Eggs @ enernedan and n,. . ro, cc...="= '
4 d
- e ta +,v < n c asm . rx.-u tc yc .,i..e , , t. n ,,in.s
,t~3 %d "A em n ' C b ss (*( 6<
- K 4 m < <
u c,,
a tr. o e a r.>
s <.. u sa ne ,, + .< a.
i i
4 i --- ._.
i 1 a :
l
)
i l
1 e
i l
1 i
I
. Pagelof_ Signature Dah2/iY,14 4
Page 3 I
'a - w - . - - - -- ,o-
.mw,,,w,, a % e. - - a434-a=m+A.w-am Wh -eE4w*dd <+me*+M*E6 W 44****d-*"4'+4* "-"*-hA"**'3'**"""MO4*##* *#- *~***O 4 *^ ^ "- * ^ ^ " # '*" '*
i l
4 4
ADDENDUM TO DfTERYEW OF b .
< h '
j (Name/ Position) i .
l P,ggg Llgg carraedan and R**aaa for ca _ "-- l e
1 9 YYk k Y0 A l kN P__/l hfy /7/)f g */
i . u / ,
- 6V /3 %D f.s s Je d " .J.,, i' , trde 3 u l i / e I
- Ol $$ f M Cs0 '
/ St] f tl h U Jf' f , je f l'
- I
)? / &W ll $tAA-k If tt/ h I' /J n f I l 0 i 4'f
23 Cdlute t h k r P t/w " 6 "
tas l
/ / /
1 9
ras.,_he-]snuw,
. s , , .,.
wl!!)?h Page 3
. o i
ADDENDUM TO Dm!RY2W OP NRh b Y (Name/ Position) g,p P. ass Lins correction and n,*=n for coa._ s A.> taAm
_-f o, 4
b O[/b b h N A@ ~ Mob // / cme ,4-A AT/b/itcus ~TC t& ::-v W : tLar es-4 *b LvlM nA e4oe=> 2. An +M cA ete%
O 17 < -MLwT;=> sol e e~r - Mh: Ad o'5 Jus m o -<- A .
o Lt4Ltc# ics s am-r f 4A EME r.w LL- cr e-(en 9 iT +s: Somy
- y-( /k cie644 e L % 77- M 2 --7 Lit 10 Md 'Pilor
/ t c c-v r - 9 L2&
. _ m ~~ a. z-
. . . . . _ . ,_-_ btara ses Page 3
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA j 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + +++
I 4 OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION !
l 5 INTERVIEW l
6 ------------------------------X 7 IN THE MATTER OF: :
8 INTERVIEW OF : Case File No.
- ..s W u.. g w :,
DON MILLER 9 : (not assigned) 10 :
11 ------------------------------x I 12 Friday, May 24, 1996 13 Millstone Nuclear Power Station 14 Training Building, Room 5 15 15 Rope Ferry Road 16 Waterford, Connecticut 17 The above-entitled interview was conducted at 18 7:30 a.m.
19 BEFORE:
20 JOHN HANNAN Review Team Leader 21 RANDY HUEY Review Team Member 22 CARL MOHRWINKEL Review Team Member NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202) 2344433 i l
2 1 )
P-R-0-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S I 2
(7:39 a.m.)
3 THE REPORTER: Do you swear or affirm the !
4 tastimony you're about to give in this interview shall be j 5 ' ti: truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? !
6 e MR. MILLER: I do.
7 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Good morning, Don. Today 8 is May the 24th, a Friday. It's approximately 7:40 a.m.
9 dy name is John Hannan. I'm here at the Millstone l l
10 simulator building as a leader of an NRC review team i
11 looking into the handling of employee concerns and 12 allegations at Millstone during the last ten years. i 13 I'd like to introduce Carl Mohrwinkel. He's.
I 14 nelping me with the interview this morning. And I I i
15 anticipate that Randy Huey will be joining us shortly also 16 aelping us with the conduct of these interviews.
17 Normally I'm a project director in the Office 18 af Nuclear Reactor Regulation, and I've been appointed to 19 lead this team. Our group is on a fact-finding mission.
20 de're trying to find out what, if anything, has gone wrong 21 with the process, develop a factual record, write case 22 ceviews and also these transcribed interviews, ideratify 23 potential root causes and impossible corrective actions 24 bhat we could recommend for both the NRC and Northeast 25 Jtilities to improve the process for future employee NEAL R. GFK}SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433
3 1 cancorno end ellegations.
2 We are not conducting an investigation.
3 Re're, likewise, not conducting an inspection. If we 4
ancover material along those lines, we will be referring 5 it to the appropriate office for follow-up. In the case 6 of inspection material, it would be King of Prussia, 7 Region I. And any wrongdoing type of information that 8 would be new information would go to our office of 9 Investigation.
10 As I said, we are transcribing the interviews.
11 The reason for that is so we can focus on what you're 12 saying and not have to be diverted by note-taking and also 13 we want to have a document that we can refer to later in..
14 aur deliberative process as we attempt to understand what 15 nas happened and try to make recommendations for 16 :orrective action.
17 The accuracy of your transcript is important 18 to us. And we want to afford you, as we have the others, 19 in opportunity to come back at a later date and review it 20 and make any changes, clarifications, or corrections you 21 feel are necessary to accurately capture what you have 22 bold us.
23 We also would intend to place your transcript 24 in the public document room at the conclusion of our 25 ceview. And unless you have a reason to object to that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASMtNOTON. O C 20006 (202l 2344433
. . 4 I wa would intend to do it. If you object, wa would kasp it {
2 withheld from the public domain. I l
3 Do you have any questions before we begin? 1
{
4 MR. MILLER: The enly thing that I would be 5 concerned about being in the public domain, if we get into 3 1
6 -- I don't know all your lines of questioning, but, you 7 know, if I get into discussion of personnel, you know, by l 8 name or something, I would have difficulty with that 4
9 getting into a public document.
10 But if I'm not in any discussion like that, I 11 bave no problem with it going in the PDR. M'/ Gnly issue 12 would be that if, in fact, as you ask me a question of an 13 individual and I -- his name came up or her name came up.
14 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: You can withhold your ,
i 15 decision on the public document room until the end of your l 1
16 discussion.
I 17 MR. MILLER: Okay. l 18 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Then we would honor 19 that. But, again, we would put the redacted version into 20 the public document room.
1 21 MR. MILLER: Okay.
22 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: At the end you can 23 think about it some more.
24 MR. MILLER: Okay.
25 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: You don't have to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20n 2364433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 12c2: 234 4433
. . 5 l' d:cida --
2 MR. MILLER: You know, it doesn't -- I have i
3 nothing to hide, to keep from the public. I'm free and 4 bonest with them all the time in answering.
5 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: If you choose to have ,
6 your transcript put in the public domain, any privacy-type I 7 information would be taken out.
8 MR. MILLER: Okay. Fine. Then as far as I'm 1 9 concerned, it's okay, then. !
10 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. All right.
11 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Then let's begin. Could 12 you just begin by giving us a brief history of your l I
13 involvement at Millstone and bring us up-to-date with what 14 your current assignment is?
15 MR. MILLER: My involvement with the Millstone l 16 sta :EKi back in 1973. And do you want me to go back that l
17 far? j i
18 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: Briefly.
19 MR. MILLER: Okay. All right.
20 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Why don't you even go 21 back farther, then, and tell us your, like, academic 22 background and Navy training, whatever, just so we get a 23 perspective of where you're coming from.
24 MR. MILLER: Okay. I'm one of the few people 25 in the industry that has not had Navy training. I was in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRitERS 1323 RMODE ISLANu AVENUE, N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTOH. O C. 20006 (202) 23m33
6 1 tho Air Forco in th3 cpaco progrcm. Ninstscn oixty-two I
!i 2 went into the Air Force, got out in 1966.
3 I went to Penn State University, got married 4 and went to Penn State University. I started there in 5 January of '67. And I graduated three years later, 6 actually almost three years later, in December of '69. I i
7 then interviewed --
8 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: What was your degree i
9 in? '
1 10 MR. MILLER: Bachelor of Science, mechanical 11 engineering. l 12 Then I went to interview and selected going to
. 13 work for General Dynamics. And I started out in General..
4 14 Dynamics as a project engineer working on the MARF 15 project.
i 16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Which stands for?
17 MR. MILLER: Modifications in addition to 4
18 reactor facilities up at Mills Atomic Power Laboratory.
1 19 I did that for a while. Then I became a test 20 engineer on new submarines. And then I came to Northeast l .
l 21 Jtilities in February of '73 as a start-up engineer on i
22 Hillstone II. I worked on the start-up of Millstone II, 23 was assigned as the start-up supervisor for Millstone III.
24 About '77 time frame the company had some 25 money problems, and they shut down the project. And I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234-4433
.= . _. . - - - _ - . __
y 1 wcnt to work for concum ro Pow 0r Company. I was a cite j 2 nanager for Midland responsible for construction start-up l
- 3 and operations of Midland. And I worked there for five i
-4 years. I left Midland in October of '83. So '78 to '83 I {
i 5 was at Midland. j 6 I came back at the invite of Jim Furland to be 7 the start-up manager for Millstone III I did that, got a {
4 8 bot license on Millstone III. And then I was the Plant 9 H& nager at Conn. Yankee from December of '87 until May of i 10 '90.
11 May of '90 I went to Philadelphia Electric,
! 12 and I was a Vice President of Peach Bottom. And I stayed
. 13 there until the end of '93, when Bernie Fox asked me to . -
l 14 come back to run Millstone. !
15 In December of '93 I was the Senior Vice 16 President in charge of Millstone.
4 17 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: For the record, Randy 18 Buey just joined us. It's about 7:46.
19 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: I apologize. I got hung up 20 in plant security. Badge didn't work.
I 21 MR. MILLER: In my role as Senior Vice 22 President for Millstone, I had Ops., Chemistry, HP, the l
23 Construction Department, Security. It would probably be 24 easier to say what I didn't have.
25 I didn't have Engineering. Engineering did NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 23d.4433 wA/4tNGTON. D C 20006 i2026 234 4433
. . 8 1 not rcport to me. It still rcported to Eric DeBarba. And 2 the Employee Concerns Program reported to John Opeka as 3 did the Quality Assurance Program. Everything else on the 4 site essentially belonged to me.
5 In February of '96 I was asked to become the 6 Senior Vice President of Oversight for all five of our 7 units. And I accepted that job and started in February, I 8 guess about the 2nd, which is two days after we went on 9 the watch list.
10 In that role of oversight, I have the Employee 1 l 11 Concerns Program. I have QA/QC, the old QA/QC 12 organization. I have ISEG. I have PRA, PSA. I'm 13 developing a new department called Engineering Assurance. l 14 I have a business focus on organizations called Business I 15 Dversight. They do interfaces with the Public Utility 16 Commission.
17 I'm also now a member of the Environmental 18 Review Board for the company. It includes all matters 19 relative to the environment. That's kind of to give you a 20 rough idea of what my job is.
. 21 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Could you spell out 22 those acronyms you used that are groups that work for you?
23 MR. MILLER: Okay. ISEG, Independent Safety 24 Engineering Group. PSA is Probablistic Safety Analysis.
25 That's running a computer code that looks at the risks for NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORfERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 6433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202i 234a433 1
< - 9
. 1 various cvolutions. l 2 QA is Quality Assurance. QC is Quality l
3 Control. PUC is Public Utility Commission. I think I got I
4 them all.
1 i
. 5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: ISEG7 '
i i
6 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I said Independent safety 7 Engineering Group. .
8 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Oh.
i j 9 MR. MILLER: Yes. Didn't that answer your 10 question, John?
4 11 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Yes.
12 MR. MILLER: Okay.
13 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Good summary. So in the 14 time frame in which a number of the high-profile cases 15 materialized at Northeast '1tilities, you were in a I 16 responsible position. Although you pointed out that the 17 RSCP didn't report to you, reported to John Opeka, what ,
1 18 role did you have at that time in the VP position that you 19 were operating in to be responsive and part of the 20 solution to the employee concerns cases? ;
21 MR. MILLER: You mean my time back when I 22 first got here?z l
23 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: '93.
24 MR. MILLER: '93? Okay. I had very little to 25 do with the -- I was not aware of most of the allegations NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(302) 23u433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433
1 th2t w0re going en et tho time.
I wacn't cwaro of tho 2 number of allegations that wa htd in-houso.
3 I was not aware of the issues that Larry {
4 Chatfield had. I did not know about L. -
5 issues until probably, I'd say, a couple of weeks before 6 bis 2.206 letter came out.
J 7
When I took over in February in my job, I got 8 a lot of information that I was surprised that I had not i
i 9 gotten before.
10 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Why do you think you 11 nadn't gotten that information before?
)
12 MR. MILLER: One of the problems that I'm 13 trying to make differences -- and Larry had mentioned that 14 ne thought I was making some difference in the issue --
15 aas that, I believe it was -- and I don't know all the 16 facts; these are my beliefs -- is that when we had the Eb 17 llll solvent and some of the branch issues back in the 18 '80s is that they became very secretive. You know, the 19 :hing of confidentiality'was taken to the point of 20 secrecy.
l 21 And what would happen is when Larry would get 22 s phone call from somebody, he would handle it almost in 23 total by himself. He would not come to my management I
24 aecause there was this thing of secrecy that he was forced 25 to work in.
NEAL R. GROSS 4 COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 4 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2364433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (2c212344433
.- , 11
, 1 Wh2t I'm doing right now is taking that away.
2 So what I've done is al1 the unit directors and I got 3 together with Larry. And, for the first time, we showed 4 them the log. And we showed them the log as the names of 5 the people were off.
6 But what it is, it told them what issues are 7 outstanding against their unit that they -- we need some 8 belp on. So what that did is opened up the door to get 9 information faster into Larry.
10 And most of the unit directors had no 11 knowledge of the numbers. I sat up in front of the KMG, 12 which is the key management group, probcbly about three 13 months ago. And I told them the number of issues that we 14 have outstanding in the company, employee concerns, and 15 the age of them.
16 At the time we had four concerns that were 17 over two years old. And I says I just -- I had that.
18 When I first got that knowledge, I was just very, "Why 19 didn't somebody come and ask us for help? Why didn't 20 somebody do this?"
21 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Were those discrimination 22 issues, though?
23 MR. MILLER: Some of them were. Some of them 24 are technical issues, some issues that could have been 25 belped. There's a lot of stuff that aren't discrimination NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202)2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 2m (202i 2344433
.. . 12 ,
l 1 13cuos.
2 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: So Employee Concerns 5 3 doesn't necessarily get the H&I cases?
4 MR. MILLER: Yeah 5 TEAM ME.M R MOHRWINKEL: They can get any kind 6 of cases?
7 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
8 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: So the two years l
9 tended to be DOL cases in our system, but in the Employee
, 10 Concerns Program, I think what Don's saying -- you can
, 11 correct me if I'm wrong -- is these were largely technical
- 12 issues that had been allowed to sit there.
- 13 TEAM MEMBER HUEY
- All I'm saying is that of.
N l 14 my review of the 150-odd cases in the logs, the ones that 15 were of the time frame he's speaking were all 16 discrimination issues. I didn't notice technical issues t
17 that had dragged out with my review of the logs.
18 MR. MILLER:- See, I have no knowledge of those 1
19 150 you're talking about. What I have knowledge of is the i 20 log that Larry gave me, which is about 21.
21 If you look at those, those were things that j 22 we could go and solve. And the fact is that out of the i
- 23 two years, we're down now. I think we have one left
- 24 that's over two years old. And we're cutting those back.
} 25 We got Larry some resources. I got my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS j 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
. . 13
. 1 Organization halping Larry cut. It's gstting information
- 2 faster to him. But we've opened it up a little bit 1
because the thing that hurt us -- and I think it. continues 3
l
) 4 to hurt us and it continues to hurt me in solving this 5
issue -- is the veil of secrecy that's on this.
6 I mean, it's -- you know, I'll tell you it's 7 craziness. I'm not -- it's like trying to tie your shoes
- 8 with your hands tied behind your back. And that's one i.
j i
9 reason I'm trying to -- I understand the people's rights.
, 10 I understand the issue of harassment and 1 11 intimidation. I understand the issues of people wanting l 12 to bring it forward. But I can't go solve a problem 9
4 l
4 13 anless I have knowledge about what I'm supposed to go ..
j 14 solve. '
! 15 "Go fix it, Don." What am I supposed to fix?
l 16 What is the issue? What's wrong out there? So to me what l
17 I'm trying to do is give people some knowledge without l i
t.
18 giving them knowledge of specific individuals but give !
a i
i
- 19 them knowledge of things that are not being done right is j
- 20 that: How do you change behaviors if you give people l
21 feedback and you give them expectations?
4 s
i 22 We've not done that because we weren't allowed 23 to. We weren't allowed to understand and --
i
, 24 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: But these were all your own i
i,
'25 rules.
i NEAL R. GROSS l OOURT MEPORTERS AND TRANSCmeERS 4
1323 MMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C. 30006 (2c212344433
[
. . 14 1 MR. MILLER: I und0rctOnd.
l 2 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Yes. l l
3 MR. MILLER: Don't -- I'm not -- I didn't l l
4 throw rocks at you guys. It's -- but when I go and try to e
i 5 get information from you guys, it's one of the big things 6 I'm trying to do with these new programs that I get 7 involved with is I need feedback. And one of my doings at 8 being effective and to me is what I get from you all is 9 that "We can't talk to you about it."
10 So I have no idea if my program is being 13 effective. Is it still coming to you? What's the l 1
12 numbers? You know, I don't need to know names. And I 13 need to know information. And I need to know, you know:..
14 Is wh:t I'm doing making sense? Is what I'm doing making i 15 things worse or is it making things better? And right now l 16 is I have no way of doing that. ;
17 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Do you think that you 18 teceived no perspective or information in that regard from ,
19 the NRC during the '89 to '94 time frame?
20 MR. MILLER: I have no knowledge. I wasn't 21 bare in those times.
22 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Let me go back, 23 though, to --
24 MR. MILLER: I really don't. I can't speak 25 for that. I can tell you now what I'm getting now. I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2364433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20006 (202) 23m33
. . 15 1 gstting mixed signalo. I gat different numb 3rs. You 2 know, I got one set of numbers from Wayne Lanning. Larry I
3 Chatfield got a number, a set of numbers, from somebody l 4 else. I mean, we're just -- what ic the right number?
5 You know, I asked the question of Larry the 6 other day. And we just -- we don't know.
7 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. But the number 8 of allegations that NRC has is really not the issue that 9 you can control so much.
10 MR. MILLER: Well, what is it? It's an l l
11 indicator.
12 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: No. It is an 13 indicator. ..
14 MR. MILLER: Right.
15 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: But we are hopeful --
16 I was telling, I think, Larry, in his interview a couple 17 of days ago that with our new allegation management !
18 system, which, as most computer systems that are being put i 19 in place it happens with, it's somewhat fallen behind 20 schedule. But it's going to be rolled out pretty soon, 21 within the next, I think, couple of months. And that 22 system is going to allow us to give licensees better and i 23 more timely reports.
24 But put that aside for a minute. Let's go 25 back to the Employee Concerns. That's a program that you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RMODE t$ LAND AVENUE N W.
(202)2 m WASHm0 TON. O C. 20006 (202) 234-4433
16 1 control crmplctoly. I guOO3 I'n o little Curprieed.
2 MR. MILLER: You're missing my message.
3 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay.
4 MR. MILLER: You're missing my message, guys.
5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay.
6 MR. MILLER: Okay? Don't get defensive. I'm 7 not --
8 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: No, no. I'm not --
9 MR. MILLER: -- attacking the NRC here. l 10 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: No, no.' I'm not 11 defensive at all. If you feel --
12 MR. MILLER: I'm telling you what my problems 13 are trying to fix the program. ..
14 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. So what is 15 four message? !
16 MR. MILLER: My message is I need data from 17 you. Okay? I go off and I do something. That creates a 18 behavior change. Okay? Behavior change then creates i i
19 sction by somebody. If that action becomes adverse and 20 you all of a sudden get more, then the feedback to me is 21 "What you just did was not effective and made things i
22 worse, Don."
23 That's all I need to know because then I can 24 go back and say, "What I did was wrong. So I've got to go 25 aack and fix that process." And then that should result l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS ,
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2364433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 2344433
._ __ . . _ . . - _ . . . _ __ ._ _ . _ - .--_. _ _ . _ _ _._ .__m 17 1 in a enothsr b1havior changa, -- oksy? -- results and roma t i
. 2 more results coming back and more feedback. " Hey, that i 3 worked Don." Okay? Then that's the process I'm talking 4 about is' feedback about how I can change the process of I
5 what I'm doing. I 6
.See, I keep going out there and trying to deal a 7 -- you're dealing with human behavior. You're not fixing 8 a reactor coolant pump. We're not fixing a steam 9 generator. We're fixing and trying to understand and 10 change a culture.
11 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: What are you saying is the 12 date from which you haven't been receiving information on !
13 the types and numbers of allegations? ..
14 MR. MILLER: I have never gotten anything.
I 15 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Well, give me a date. I
)
16 vant to because this is just shocking to me. '
i i
i 17 MR. MILLER: 001 until now. ,
18 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Just when? I mean, when
- 19. did you start? I just want to know. I mean, we looked at 20 the '85 to '95 time period. And what you're saying i
21 doesn't stack up at all with my understanding. l 22 MR. MILLER: Well, I'll give you what I know 23 about it since I've been in the program since February.
24 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: February of '967 25 MR. MILLER: Of '96, yeah.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEml AND TRANSCmOEml 1323 mMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 23M433 WASMINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 2344433 i
1 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okty.
2 MR. MILLER: Sinca Fcbru2ry of '96 I get a est 3 of data from Wayne Lanning. He called me on the phone, 4 and he says, " Hey." He says, "You guys wanted to know 5 numbers." He says, "I can give you numbers." i
- m EV & '
6 He gave me a number of 140, for 7 '93, 140 for '94, 25 for '95, and 25 so far this year. l 8 That's the numbers he gave me. Over the phone, he said, 9 "Here's the numbers."
10 so I took those numbers. I gave them to Ted.
I 11 We talked to the board of trustees about it.
12 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Those were number of 13 allegations. Is that what you're saying? ..
I 14 MR. MILLER: Yeah. l l
15 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. ,
16 MR. MILLER: Okay? Then Larry Chatfield came 17 to me and says, " Don, you've been putting these numbers 4
, 18 aut. They're wrong."
19 I said, "What do you mean?
4 20 I got these from Wayne." He said, "Well, I 21 got these from the NRC." And it said numbers like 30s and 22 40s for the same time period. Instead of 140, they were 23 talking about 30 and 40.
24 So you see what my frustration is. What is 25 the right number? Is that I -- I'm not criticizing Wayne NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE tSLAND AVENUE N W (202) 234-4433 WASHl'40 TON. D C 20006 (2c2) 2344433
_ _ _. ~. -~_ . _ _ _ . - . _ . __. . . _ _ _ _ _.- _ _ - _ .
.. . 19 1 baro. I'm just esying I ces thic 23: What kind of data 1 2 is this?
s I
3 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: And during the EEI forums '
4 --
l 5 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
6 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- that I understand --
7 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
8 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- you people have attended 9 over the last five years --
10 MR. MILLER: That's where Larry got his data.
4 j 11 He talked to somebody in there from the NRC. And they l l
12 gave him the numbers. He showed me.
13 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: All right. So you are .. j i '
14 getting -- I 15 MR. MILLER: Yeah, but it doesn't match what 16 I'm getting from the region there. I mean, if it was like 17 five off, who cares? But they're 100 off.
18- TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Are you counting the 19 same? Do you know you're getting apples and apples or are 20 you maybe getting apples and oranges, maybe --
21 MR. MILLER: I don't know. You guys are 22 giving them to me.
23 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Are you asking the right 24 :Iuestion?
25 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: It's a matter of you asking NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 7M4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202i 234 4433
.. _- _~.- - .- .. _. - .. - - . _ . - . . . . -. - . - . - -
, ., 20 i 1 a quGoticn, tos. Ycu kn:w, ero ycu ecking for liko tha 2 number of allegations versus the number of concerns? That 3 could turn, you know, 30 into 130 very easily. ,
4 MR. MILLER: I don't know what Larry is asking '
5 for, but we're just getting two different numbers. !
j 6 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okay. Well, my perspective ,
7 is that the NRC has given NU a very colorful perspective l 8 over the last six years on the status of allegations, the 9 fact that NU stands in very poor perspective as far as the 10 number of allegations coming in to the NRC.
11 Perhaps things haven't been as quantitative as 12 they might. And that's certainly something, you know, the
- 13 imC has taken on board and is working on because we .-
4 14 believe you should get a -- you know, raw data is pretty i 15 :lifficult to work with if it isn't put into perspective.
l 16 So I think that's one thing that definitely we'll see 17 improvement.
- i. 18 But I guess I am a little surprised at a i
j 19 senior NU manager giving me the impression that he had no 20 idea of what the magnitude of allegation troubles were.
21 MR. MILLER: And you're right. I still don't.
22 I don't know what the right number is. I'm confused.
23 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okay. Well --
24 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I think this is i 25 something we have to look at, too, because your numbers NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEm$ AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 mMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (300 2364433 WASM8NGTON. D C. 30006 (202) 234.4433
. ..---. - ._ -.. -.~.- .- _ . - ..- - - . - - . .- - - -.- ..-. .
. . 21 i.
. 1 are difforcnt than what ho cited, I think.- Let's back up,
~
2 though, to the Employee Concerns Program because-you've
- 3 made a good point. And we hear your message. And we're l'
l 4 going to.have to look into it.
I 5 But, anyway --
- 6 TEAM LEADER HANNAN
- Let me give a perspective
- 7 on what our mission is, looking at the process and how we t
j 8 might improve it, both ours as well as NU's. What.I'm 9 taking away from this part of the discussion is that we, f 10 t(RC, need to look, do a batter job of getting a clear.
4 l 11 message back to the utilities as far as what the numbers ]
\
- 12 are because you can use that information as feedback in l' 13 terms of judging your own effectiveness. .. I l 14 MR. MILLER
- Yeah. And that's the whole i
[ 15 point, you know, that I'm not -- no way am I saying that l
.e 16 you guys are causing these. I'm solely responsible for i
17 everyone that comes to you. I fully acknowledge that and l 18 accept that.
19 What I have to do is I'm trying to make some 20 :lifference here, make some change. And I need to know 21 when I'm being effective and when I'm not.
22 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okay.
23 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: In the bigger picture, 24 de've had some discussions with others, including Ted 25 Fergenbaum and other managers, getting after the issue of:
NEAL R. GROSS ~
, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRt0ERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(209) 2kd433 WASHWGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234-4433
. . - - - - _ _ - - . -.-=-- - ~ . - . _ . . . - , . -
, S 22 1 How do you musuro your performancs? And that's an sntire 2 major topic area.
3 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
i
- 4 TEAM LEADER HANNAN
- Since we're on it now, 5 before we leave it, could you offer any other. views you r
- 6 4
have as to how you -- what you're doing to measure your x 4
7 effectiveness?
4 i
8 MR. MILLER: Well, you know, what I've tried t 9 ,
, to think about is what kind of -- I used to have -- in 4
10 Connecticut Yankee, I had a little meter on my desk that i
F 11 told me the megawatts I was putting out, you know, just to i 12 sit there and peck. And every time we'd have a change in
[
13 the system, the megawatts would change. So I was online.-
14 nonitor of megawatts.
15 I wish I could have a meter that showed me the i i
16 trust in the organization, that told you how the trust is 17 going at the site. As you make a decision, it's automatic
(
i 18 that the trust meter would change,
- 19 So I don't have one of those. I have been 4
20 trying to come up with one of those. So what I've done is d
21 that -- have you seen the Employee concerns task i
22 assignments? Have you seen them?
i 23 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Yes.
1 24 MR. MILLER: Okay. One of those in there is J
i 25 measurement. And I've taken on myself as my role to do NEAL R. GROSS i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
- (202) 2344433 WASMmOTON. D C. 20006 (202) 2344433 i
, t 23 1 thtt. I'v3 called in a number of folka to holp ma out 2 with that.
3 One of the people came in willingly and I 4 love it;'it was free of charge -- is Westinghouse. And it 5 was a Westinghouse, defense part of Westinghouse. And 6 this woman came in. She works with the chairman of l
7 Restinghouse. And she talked to me about how they are ;
8 dealing with issues in the Westinghouse side of things. !
9 They had some real problems relative to some 10 wrongdoing and some -- a lot of allegations in their 11 defense industry. And what they did is they come up with 1
12 some employee concerns programs for the defense part of 13 the house. And now they're using it in the nuclear part.
14 also.
15 It's a real good measurement tool. She showed 16 me how it works. It's very effective. It's a survey you 17 do like every quarter. It's very simple. It's like 10 or 18 15 questions.
19 So she gave me that. And she showed me some 20 of the data and how that was effective for them in gauging 21 where the problem is or where they need to go put their 22 attention, where were some hot spots that they need to go 23 deal with.
24 And so I took that and I gave it to an OD guy 25 that works for me and has some history in the business of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 234-4433
. s 24 1 ifR, human bihavior. And I acked hin to dcvalop for mm a 2 tool about how to measure this. This is one piece.
3 And so we've been scouring the country. And 4 we've got a couple of consultants in helping us with this 5 measurement tool, something that we feel is going to be I 6 effective at being able to do that. So that is one piece.
7 The other piece, of course, is that you look 8 at the numbers, ycu know: Hov many people are coming to l
{
9 Larry? How many people are going to the program? How 10 many people are going outside the program? You've got all 11 those kinds of measurements that you could put down.
12 I'm still struggling with how to come up with 13 an exact tool that tells me that the trust -- this whole -
4 14 thing is employee trust, the employees trusting I
- 15 management. l 16 You know, that's -- down at the bottom line is 17 what we've got to ge*. back here is the trust of the 18 employees in the management of this company. And that to 19 me is the main thing that we've got to grab a hold of.
20 And what I'm struggling with is how to measure that. Like 21 I said, I'm trying a ccuple of techniques.
i 22 I am on the Nuclear Review Board for Florida 23 Power and Light. I was down -- Florida Power and Light, i
24 Don't use the acronyms; right? The -- I talked to them 25 sbout some of their stuff in their programs. We're using 4
'NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 2 4 3 1
, , 25 1 tho m 2eurcments thoro. Th0y'ro going to ccnd m3 come
- 2 measurements from them. )
i 3 I then went to South Texas. And I was in I
4 Houston with the South Texas project yesterday. I know l 5 the Employee Concerns person there is Dennis Keating. I 6 worked with him at Midland. Good talks about things he's 7 doing. He's going to send me his indicators that they 8 ased at South Texas to help them recover some of their 9 problems. They had quite a few allegers down there.
10 So I'm out searching. I'm out asking. You 11' know, I'm new at this particular job. I'm new at 12 oversight. I'm trying to understand how I'd need to 13 behave, you know, in my new job. And I'm also trying to..
14 anderstand as to how can I be more effective with 15 oversight and also the employee concerns.
16 So I don't have any specific indicators for 17 fou today, gentlemen. I am going after that. It's one of 18 ny things, like I said, I spent all week out searching, 19 asking people.
20 TEAM HEMBER HUEY: You mentioned South Texas.
21 rou didn't talk to Englemeyer? He's not the head of their .
22 --
23 MR. MILLER: No, no. The guy that reports 24 tight to Cottle, Bill Cottle.
25 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Right, Englemeyer --
NEAL R. GROSS COURT AEPORTERS AND TMANSCR$ERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 2N WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
j ,
. s 26 )
1 MR. MILLER: H3 docan't do it. H3's not i
2 there. !
)
3 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: He's not there anymore? l 4 MR. MILLER: Dennis Keating reports right to l 5 -- he may be there, but I talked to Dennis Keating
(
6 yesterday. I talked with Ted Cloninger. I talked to Bill 7 Cottle. I talked to Joe. I forget his last name. He was 8 the guy that was essentially orchestrating their 9 turnaround. And I talked to Lawrence Marshall, who is 10 their QA Director.
11 See, I was with all of those people yesterday.
12 And they all had stuff to throw in the mail to me. But I 13 didn't -- that doesn't mean -- ..
14 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Englemeyer set up their 15 recovery of their employee concerns.
16 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I didn't --
17 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Theirs is one of the best 18 3nes to look at.
19 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah. So that's why I went 20 down there, took time. You know, like I said, I got back i
21 at 2:00 a.m. this morning and thought it was worth the 22 trip.
23 And I spent a lot of time with Dennis talking 24 about the issues. And I went through what I think we need 25 to work on. And it's right in line with what they're l
NEAL R. GROSS COumT REPORTERS AND TRANSCmeEms 1323 mMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W i, (302) 23Md33 wASMWGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 23u433
g . . 27 )
1 doing, gstting out tho Expectations and eeno training for i
4 2 their managers and supervisors.
?
1 3 And what I'm missing from them is some good 4 indicator.
5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Don, to go back to l
- 6 your opening remarks about the Employee concerns Program 7 and the fact that you just took it over and you're trying 8 to get a handle on where you stand, I think you said there 9 were like 21 employee concerns, --
- 10 MR. MILLER
- Yeah.
- 11 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL
- -- of which 4 were
- 12 over 2 years old.
13 MR. MILLER: Right. .-
14 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I understand that set i
15 of statistics developed before you came back on board. :
1 16 But, you know, while we do appreciate your comments and 17 we'll look into your comments about the NRC, those 21 you 18 or your predecessor or Larry chatfield had direct control 19 over.
20 And I think I heard you say you were surprised l i
21 and couldn't really come up with an accountability measure 22 for why four of them were over two years old.
23 'MR. MILLER: Yeah.
24 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Management didn't !
i 25 know what was going on with them. Nobody seemed to be '
NEAL R. GROSS ;
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASEm$
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (20m 23M433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 2W433
. . 28 1 2ctivoly trying to bring thsso numbara down or eolva old 2 cases.
3 MR. MILLER: Well, Larry was --
4 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. ;
5 MR. MILLER: -- by himself.
- 6 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL
- Okay. That's what I i 7 was asking you, I guess I was going to ask you, to comment
] 8 on. How do you see that? How do you explain how that 9 developed? And how do you see it developing into the 10 future?
- 11 MR. MILLER: I don't know how it developed, 12 bow it got there. I really was not a part of that, what
- 13 bappened there. So I really don't know how it got there-14 When it was decided that Larry is going to 1
15 work for me, I sat down Larry. I says -- and he used to i 16 report to the CEO. Now he's reporting to me. And I says, 17 "I want to make sure you don't have any problem."
18 He says, "No." He says, "No, I really don't 19 bave any problem, Don," he said, "because I know how you 20 work." He says, "I know your relationship with the 21 people," he says, "so I'm looking forward to it."
22 I says, " Good." I says, "What do I need to 23 do?"
24 He says, "Well, the first thing," he says, "I 25 need to do is make sure you understand all the stuff NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2N WASHINGTON, O C 20006 (202) 234 4 33
ew 1 th:t's gaing cn right now.a And, y:u know, I gst into 2 investigations that were going on at the time. And I says 3 -- you know, I just was -- you know, some of the stuff 4 just really just kind of set me back on my heels, the kind 5 of stuff that we were looking at.
6 So I said, "Okay." So I got all of that. And 7 I'm now up to my ears in all of those. I know all of 1 l
8 those things are going on. And I'm helping when I can. )
l 1 '
9 I'm working on internal auditing, you know, and I meet 10 weekly with internal auditing folks about status of ,
11 investigations.
12 I'm meeting with Ed Richters to develop a new l
13 relationship with the corporate ethics officer. So it's. '
14 things that I've never been involved with before that I'm 15 now starting to do.
16 So Larry really appreciates that because he, 4
17 you know, really didn't have the horsepower. You know, he 18 felt now that with me in there, I'm giving him some 19 horsepower to get some of this stuff accomplished.
20 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Speaking of that, it's 21 been -- two things. One, it's been indicated by others, 22 some of the individuals we talked to, that there's a 23 leadership deficit, that the jury is still out on the part 24 of some of the -- on you because you are considered to be 25 part of the problem from your previous position as VP when NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W (20 0 224 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (2C2i 2344433
. . 30 1
all tho difficultica eroso, th0t ycu carry coma baggzga 1
2 relative to that.
3 And a concern has been expressed that they're 4 looking for some leadership. And what they are not seeing 5 is the NSCP carrying the necessary weight to effect 6 Change.
7 Can you comment on that and what you're trying 8 to do to give Larry the power to go into a contentious 9 situation at a high level in the company and get it i 10 resolved? '
11 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: And, plus, I guess I'm 12 adding onto that. We're sensing both from the employees a )
13 sense of inability of NSCP to provide any independence for {
l 14 evaluation of concerns.
15 And, likewise, when we talk to NSCP people, we 16 detect a lack of any knowledge or guidance on their part 17 as to being able to explain to employees how the company i 18 an provide an independent evaluation vehicle through the
- 19 nuclear safety concern program.
20 MR. MILLER: There's about 30 questions in ,
21 there to answer.
22 What I try to give Larry now is some chance 23 that with my organization, the oversight organization, he 24 and I, every day we have a 1:00 o' clock phone call. And 25 so he gets all my directors together. And he talks to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234-4433
l' thcm about any iccu:3 that ho han and ha nseds holp on.
4 2 pmd hs's besn oosing coma really rapid turnaround stuff 3 because I got like Mike Brown and Gary Bouchard and people l
4 like that that can really go out and get some of these 5 issues taken care of.
l 6 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: These are people that ;
7 report directly to you? j l
l 8 MR. MILLER: Uh-huh. That's the new oversight l
{
i 9 organization. And Larry,just felt -- you know, he told me 10 the other day. He says he feels really great about being 11 part of oversight because it's really starting to help him I i
12 become more effective with so many questions he's getting. ;
13 The other thing is that Larry was so -
)
14 averwhelmed is that he's been asking for manpower. And he 15 ::ame to me in one of our first meetings. And I says, 16 "What do you need?"
l 17 He says, "I need some people."
18 I says, "Go hire them." ]
i 19 He said, "What?"
20 I says, "Go get them."
21 So it used to be here at Millstone I think 22 farry and his secretary and one person that was handling 23 four things. And that's why things weren't getting done.
24 pmd they were doing all the investigations themselves.
25 So what I've done now is I've authorized him
.NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W j (200 2364433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202i 234 4433 l
, , I to includo with hic crganiz0tien ths oversight peoplo who
, 2 aro at S cbrook. And I'va cuthorized him to go off and j 3 bire eight more people.
I 4 And so he's in the process of doing that.- i 5 He's gotten Eric Fries, who was his project manager for !
6 this process, this being the information task assignments.
7 He's gotten ll yrol and a few other folks working for l 8 dim.
9 So Larry feels that he now finally has gotten 10 enough people that he can use them. This peer program is g
11 moving much stronger. And we're starting to get some 12 people out of the organization that we feel can really 13 help us in some of these areas. So I think that's what .I-14 was able to give Larry, some chances of that.
{
15 The other thing is that Larry knows if I know '
16 by a matter of fact that if he gets in a situation with i
17 somebody, that he can call me. And I get full support of 18 the board of directors for what I need to do. They told l 19 me that in front of Bernie and Bob that they believe in 20 what I'm trying to do. And they says, "You have the 21 authority and support of us to go do what you need to do."
22 I don't know if I answered all your questions 23 there. I tried to go through that with you. You know, 24 you said about me and baggage. I don't know if I should 25 bother even addressing that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCAiBERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (X2) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20006 (202i 234 4433
1 r.,scuntiaAAy none or En3 ma]or ellegations Enat
,. 2 vou'vo dcolt with at NRC happ:ned en my w2tch. You know, 3 I sometimes --
4 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: The reason you should 5 Address it is because we have gotten that signal from a 6 number of people at the DCLTS. People feel that in your 7 organization.
8 MR. MILLER: Yeah i
9 TEAM MEMBER MNfRWINKEL: And that's why I want 10 to get your comment on.
l 11 MR. MILLER: Okay. I didn't feel like this 12 Decause I . ion't want to sound defensive. The 13 N ca es happened when I was at conn. Yankee. --
14 The i sue happened when I was at s -
, 15 . Conn. Yankee. The fact is I was a major supporter of 16 ) d when I went to Philadelphia Electric, I was r -
4 l 17 i.ntervie ed by OI on the c e in support of 18 h o --
i 19 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: When did you arrive? When 20 :iid you first arrive in a management capacity at 21 Hillstone?
! 22 MR. MILLER: December of '93.
23 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okay. So that extra 24 baggage starts with December of '93, then, to the current j 25 state of affairs in which you're sorry?
l NEAL R. GROSS
$ court REPORTER $ AND TRAN$CRIBER$
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4 433 wA$HINGTON D C 20006 (2C2) 2344433 a
~ ' _ _ ,_ - . - . -- - . - - - --
1 MR. MILLER: I wouldn't clocsify I'm corry,
,. 2 but what I would cay in that i not work 3 for me. had no knowledge of issue. I know 1
4 1
,w as -- had some problems.
G d
- pls l 5 was talking to me. He was trying to 6 get me to adop Covey training. I did a lot of things
! 7 with a out running "To the Point." I changed some
. 8 of the "To the Point" headings on it because of
. 9 :liscussions with
/ r mMg
! 10 I never knew that had an issue with
./
j 11 spent fuel. I personally had an issue with spent fuel i
12 pool. I personally had a problem with moving fuel. I
- 13 gave my new Unit i director very clear directions he would 14 not move fuel until we got a limit, not knowing that
,... ~ Mb 15 $1 3
.~ j
[hadanissue.
16 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: All right. But were you in l
) 17 sVP's position?
18 MR. MILLER: Senior VP, yes.
19 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Since '93?
20 MR. MILLER: Yeah. But Engineering did not 21 work for me.
22 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: But you were a senior 23 component of the management of the station as far as, you 24 know, a lateral type of responsibility for the overall 25 performance of the station.
NEAL R. GROSS j COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20m 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 23d 4433 I
35 -
1 MR. MILLER: N3t ov0rall performanca. I had 2 nothing to do with Engineering. See, I --
3 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: So the culture problems 4 associated with the lack of employee trust, that didn't 5 extend into your organization at all?
6 MR. MILLER: I was working on that for my 7 departments. If you read the' employees' concerns, you 8 know, the assessment, if you look in there and read, -- I 9 forget what page -- my name is mentioned twice in there.
10 und to me it's mentio'ted twice in a positive manner. No 11 other officer is mentioned. And because what I was 12 purihing for was trust amongst employees and respect among 13 the, employees. .-
14 And then if you read my "To the Point" 15 articles -- and I don't know; there's a couple of hundred 16 of them I issued -- is that whole message of trying to 17 change culture. And to me that's what I was working on.
18 But I could only do what I had knowledge of.
19 I was working on with my troops trying to get down to 20 understanding how we need to do business in the future.
21 Mid I think I was making an impact on my troops.
22 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Don, I think, rather 23 than getting into the discussion of, you know, individual 24 cases and what you did or didn't do, let me try a 25 different approach.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEms AND TRANSCRGERS 1323 mHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 wASMcNGTON. D C 20006 (202) 2344433
. .. - . . - _ =_.
so 1 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
2 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I think what we were 3
hearing from employees when they used the word " baggage" 4 that John used, not so much that you're a bad guy 5 personally or that you personally fumbled the ball in the 6 at's not what I think they're saying.
7 I think what I heard them saying is management 8 always rolls out these good plans, --
9 MR. MILLER: Sure.
10 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- everything looks 11 great on paper, and nothing happens. And I think that's 12 what they were saying you were a part of, that you were 13 part of management at different points in time. You came 14 a couple of times and then left and then came back and so 4
15 on.
16 I think employees generally speaking have a 17 favorable view of you. You know, they said you are a guy 18 who walks around the plant and talks to people. And they 19 feel that you are very approachable.
20 We don't want to give you the wrong impression 21 that everybody badmouths you. That was not the case. But 22 people felt if they said part of the problem or the 23 baggage question was that you were part of the problem 24 where all of these plans look good on paper --
25 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344433 WASHtNGTON. D C 2n006 (202) 234 4433 i
37 1 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- and thSn thSro's 2 no follow-up.
And that's what leads to the distrust that 3 you're now trying to address.
4 MR. MILLER: Right.
5 TEAM MEMBER MONRWINKEL: And take this Quinn 6 report. Everybody stood up and saluted in January and 7 said, " Boy, this is some kind of good project. We were 8 bard-hitting. We've come up with some great ideas. We've 9 called it like we see it. And now we're going to-go 10 forward."
11 On Valentine's Day, three of your people came 12 to NRC, Terry Harpster, Bill Temple, and Mike Quinn. And 13 they said, "Here it is. You know, management is fully ..
14 supportive of this. You can see we've pulled the sheets l
15 backi We've showed you where all the wsrts are. Now i l 16 we're going to solve these problems."
17 And they said -- Randy and I were present at 18 that meeting - "Within two weeks, we're going to have an 19 action plan that's going to get going on these things."
20 tiow here we are. What was this? Three and a half to four 21 months after the report that came out. And we're still 4
22 hearing, "We're almost there."
23 And employees are saying, "That's what we're 24 talking about. Here is a good thing, a good report, 25 hard-hitting. We've put our careers on the line," the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS 1323 RMODE ISULND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 wASNINGTON. O C. 20005 (202n 2W433
38 1 p;ople who ware on tha task forca, and saying, "Look, i 2 management is still not putting it in place." That's what 3 they're talking about.
4 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And I have a specific to l
d 5 add to that, a specific example of what would feed this l
- 6 element of distrust and concern with the follow-up. We
} 7 have at least one person on the Quinn team who has told us i
8 that they have come forward and offered their services 9 since they felt so personally involved with the effort.
10 They had lived through it. And they knew what 11 the problems were. And they thought they could help fix 12 them. And they offered their involvement in the 13 corrective action program to be part of the solution. ..
14 And they aren't being incorporated. They're i
15 not being listened to. They basically feel like they're 16 shut out. j 17 MR. MILLER: Let's talk a little bit about the is action plan. I was given this and said, "Okay. Here it 19 is. You've got this new job. And, by the way, you've got i
20 to fix this, this 72 issues." And so I took the 72 I 21 issues. Plus, there was an NRC inspection in 22 September-october of last year. There was like eight I
23 findings under that.
24 So I said, "We need to take all of those and s 25 put them together." Plus, there's some IN.PO issues about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2344a33 WASHtNGTON. D C 20005 (202) 234.4433
39 j 1 tha mantgcm:nt and things lik3 that. Lst's put all of !
2 that together, come up with a plan that we can go off and i
3 solve. j 4 I presented this to the board of trustees l 5 April 1st. And before, you know, I gave it to the board
)
. 6 of trustees -- and the thing about it that people were ;
7 saying we didn't, I went oack to the team.
. 8 And I asked them. I says, "Did this meet the 9 nark?" So, you know, my concern is -- about honesty of j 10 people around here sometimes is I asked the team members, !
11 "Does this solve -- if implemented, would this take care j 12 of your issues?"
13 And to a person, everybody said, "Yes. This-14 is great, Don." l 15 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Every team member was i 1 16 present during that meeting?
4
- 17 MR. MILLER: I don't know if I'd done thr.t.
18 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Was that before or after 19 April 1st?
20 MR. MILLER: That was before April 1st.
21 Before we put this out to the board of trustees, we asked 22 those folks, "What do you think of this?"
23 And we got, " Don, this is it." Okay? So l
24 that's where I've, you know, had some issues, you know, 25 with people, how honest they are. But maybe, again, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202i 234 4433 l
40 1 socicty of fear, afraid to toll ma that th;y don't agrca 2 with me, I'm just, you know --
3 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: I don't think there's a 4 case of dishonesty here. I think we may overstated what 5 we heard, but they did acknowledge they had an opportunity 6 to comment, Don. That wasn't the issue.
I
- 7 MR. MILLER
- Okay.
8 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: They want to be part of
] 9 the solution. And how are you folding them into it?
10 MR. MILLER: Well, a number of the folks is
! 11 we're hiring them. We're bringing them into Nuclear 12 Safety Concerns. Some of the people on the team are
! 13 actually members of Larry's organization. We're trying to 3
14 hire them.
15 You know, the issue being is that one of the 16 things -- whatever I say, maybe I'm a little bit
- 17 defensive. I'm not trying to be. I'm trying to give you 18 some facts is that one of the things that I was really 19 kind of bothered about is the issue of -- and has been a
] 20 trust issue about how we move people around in Northeast
! 21 Utilities.
l
- 22 And from the time, I guess it was, I wasn't 23 bere when they reorganized Engineering is that there's a 2
24 whole big issue there. A lot of folks were very upset 25 that they picked their friends to become the new NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS
- 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W.
(2021 2364433 WASH 6NGTON. O C 20006 (202) 2 9 4433
41 1 managtm:nt tsam of Enginsgring.
2 And so what I decided is that when I go and 3 choose my team in Oversight, that I'm going to go through
- 4 a selection process, which includes assessment centers and 5 takes out this process of trying to say that, you know, "I i
6 picked you because I like you and I've worked with you 7 before. You may not be the right guy. Randy may be the i
8 tight guy. But I chose you because I like you."
9 So to get that out is the new process. And 10 it's killing me because we're going through a power-up.
?
11 de're developing assessment centers. We're developing 12 postings because these jobs don't exist. We're developing 13 job descriptions, stuff th. s never been done before at..
14 RU.
l 15 So what it's causing is it's hurting me 16 because I'm doing a lot of stuff myself that I wish I had 17 some managers to work on. So that process is taking 18 longer.
19 So one of the things that people are 20 frustrated with is it's taking too long for me to man my 21 organization. So I got approval, just I guess -- what's 22 today? Friday -- Wednesday from KR is that I can just 23 take three people out of the organization and put them 24- over into Oversight working for Larry Chatfield. And I go 25 through the process because I desperately need some people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RH00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2M WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
. . 42 1 in tharo.
2 And one of those persons is out of the 3 committee.
4 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Who is that? /
~MV 5 MR. MILLER: Hi ame is Okay?
6 4e're trying to get i I want to get him ov r real 74
, 7 fast. And he wants to come big time. ' spends a lot af time with me.
8 He's always in my office. We're talking 9 about stuff and how he can help. And so I really want 10 tim.
i 11 And I already told Eric DeBarba about 12 celeasing him from Engineering. I've just got to make the
>+ b
, 13 process work. Som').isoneoftheguysthatI'mgoing-14 to make the move without going through the process. g 1
15 It bothers me to do that, but I need people.
16 so three of them I'm going to do that with. And the other 17 four I'm going to do it through the process. So that 18 gives you some insight.
19 I'm trying to desperately change how we do 20 things is that this is not going down well within the 2
{ 21 ather organizations within Nuclear is that they see me.
22 I says, "I'm doing a power-up. Next time it 23 should go easier." I says, "So I'm really breaking a lot 24 af ground for you," I said, "because I really believe in 25 this. And," I says, "I'm not going to allow you in NEAL R. GROSS
, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (20m 234 4433 WASMiNGTON. D C 20006 (202) 2W433
43 I 1 avoreight. I will iccuo ct p work crdera if you hiro i 2 people without going through the process because I believe 1
3 that this is an issue." I've promised people that I would l 4 do this.
5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Do what you would?
6 MR. MILLER: That I would go through this 7 process of selection versus just picking.
8 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: Now you've got 9 spproval to just pick three; right? Isn't that what you 10 said?
11 MR. MILLER: Yeah. But I'm saying I really 12 struggle with it. Larry's been after me for pretty close 13 to a month now about he needs these guys, he needs 14 1 foyerthere. He says, " Don?"
15 And I says, "Well," I says, " Larry," I says, 16 "I 'm really hard on this process."
i j 17 So I sat down and talked with KR, DP, and 18 stuff. And I says, you know, "This really hurts me to 19 co me and ask you this, but I need desperately three people 20 in oversight right away of this job."
21 And so I have to write a letter. And he said, 22 "If you write a letter," he says, "I will do it for these 23 three people."
24 And it really bothers me a little bit. What 25 I'm trying to do is I -- Larry needs help big time. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4 33
L 44 1 fJ nceda to be cvor with me. 83 --
2 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Now you said before 3 de asked you 30 questions. Your answer there just raised 4 three or four major issues at least.
5 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
6 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I kind of in the 7 co uple of weeks we've been up here interviewing folks got 8 the feeling that the problems here are cross-referenced, 9 if you will.
10 The thing you're saying here, your intention 11 appears to be good, "I've got to get this organization 12 staffed up. However, I promised people I'm not going to 13 do accepted hiring. Now I'm in a position where I've got 14 to do accepted hiring."
15 MR. MILLER: Yes.
16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And so you go and do 17 that.
18 MR. MILLER: Yes.
19 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And that was one of 20 the points that Ted Fergenbaum made with us about this 21 unfortunate resignation earlier in the week. He said, 22 "Why have somebody who is not following the rules in the l 23 senior position when I'm telling the employees we're going -
l 24 to follow the rules? When this guy doesn't, I'm going to l 25 have to get him out of here."
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISER$
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20m 2344433 wASHsNGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433
-45 1 MR. MILLER: YG2h. !
2 TRAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: On the other hand, we i
3 heard fror,somebody else. And I forget the details of j 4 that situation where somebody wasn't qualified. Remember
- 5 we were hearing that? What was his name?
1 6 TEAM LEADER MANNAN: Yes. I'm not sure that l
l 7 was on the record. l 8 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay. Maybe it 9 wasn't, but you're --
10 MR. MILLER: You see what I'm struggling with.
11 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I am.
12 MR. MILLER: I'm really -- you know, Larry has 13 been beating on me, " Don, I need these three guys." ..
14 And I said, " Larry, you know you've got to go 15 through the process." And I just have wilted over the 16 last couple of days and allowed him to go do it.
17 But you're 100 percent right. I mean, there's 18 -- I am not denying that at all. And I have been -- in 19 the Oversight role, I have been really very hard, you l
20 know, and I came down on a couple of people already and 21 told them that's not official. You cannot put that person
]
22 in that job officially, you know.
23 And a couple of employees said they really 24 appreciated me doing this. And they hired somebody from 25 outside without posting inside. And I made them get rid NEAL R. GROSS COumf REPORTERS AND TRANSCmlSERS 1323 AH00E ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(2tzn 234 4433 wASwiNGTON, D C 20006 (202i 23m33
a .
46 I
1 of tha guy.
2 So to me is that I'm doing it. And the reason 3 I was very hesitant to Larry is because I've been doing 4 this to other people now. And you're right on. You know, ;
5 when should the rules apply? They should always apply. j 6 So I go back and read this. Larry -- I 7 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWIhKEL: Well, maybe in six 8 months you'll be in a different position --
9 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
10 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- or some time 11 frame, but we've heard from a number of employees --
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I 13 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- that this acting.,
14 and interim capacity is itself demoralizing.
15 MR. MILLER: Right.
16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And people don't like 17 to have to apply for their own job, as I'm sure you know.
4 18 MR. MILLER: I know. I 19 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And so while you may 20 have good intention, again you're swirling the waters, if 21 you will.
22 MR. MILLER: Absolutely.
23 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And that's upsetting 24 people.
25 But one of the things you touched on was PDs, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2364433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
e . 47 1 you caid a minuto cgo, position doccriptions.
2 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
3 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Okay? We had an 4 interview earlier in the week with Jim Tyrol, --
5 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
6 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- you know, the 7 roving ambassador, if you will, for the Employee Concerns 8 Program. He's a very articulate guy. He's very dedicated 9 to the program is our impression.
10 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
11 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: He's not afraid to 12 speak his mind. He made the connection with being a union 13 steward-type job. Larry confirmed that's how he sees ..
14 them. But in the course of the discussion, we asked him, 15 you know, "Do you have a position description?" l I
16 He said, "No."
17 We said, "Have you ever been appraised?"
18 "No."
19 "Have you received training?"
20 "No."
21 We even asked him, "What is your biggest 22 success story?" And he was unable to answer that.
23 Now, that last point I think Larry covered 24 because Larry said, "Well, he's kind of a guy who doesn't 25 blow his own horn." And Larry gave us a half a dozen very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202i 234 4433 j 3
_ - . _ . _ . _ _ _ _ - . - _~ -
48 1 good examples _of what Jim h2d dons. So fino.
2 Then we told Larry our concern about the 3 position description. We said, "How can you evaluate this i
4 " guy when he has no position description?"
5 Larry's answer was, "I haven't had a position I
6 description for five or six years myself."
l_
7 And we were talking amongst ourselves last f 8 night and said in a company where people are cr.1ticized 9 for being overly legal.d.mtic, that situation is almost j 10 comical --
l\ 11 MR. MILLER: It is.
4 l 12 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- because of the 2
13 fact that here you have your Employee Concerns person and i
i 14 bis first new hire --
15 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- and there's no 17 position descriptions. Yet, tuen when the company's in a 18 downsizing mode, by not having position descriptions and
- f. 19 by not having appraisals, you put yours31f in the position ;
1 ;
i 20 where people are saying, "You singled me out because I'm a ;
21 concerned employee. And you said, 'Because you're a 22 concerned employee, we're going to give you a bad 23 appraisal and put you on the street.'"
l 24 I'd like to get your impressions of that.
25 MR. MILLER: You got it. I mean, no denying ,
I l
NEAL R. GROSS i I
CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCReERS I 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W j (202) 2344433 WASMiNGTON. D C 20006 (202i 234 ed 1
49 1 thnt. Liko I eaid, whsn I was trying to go through this i 2 in manning my organization, the first thing I'm doing is 3 writing position descriptions.
4 I have to write postings. And what I'm trying {
5 to do is go out and find data that I can write. I can't 6 even write a posting. So my guys right now are out i 4
- / developing position descriptions. And from that you write 8 a posting for the job so we can go out and hire somebody.
9 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Do you have a 10 position description yourself?
11 MR. MILLER: No, no, no. See, what I'm saying 12 is my new organization is brand new. And there is no 13 position. We're writing them as we go right now. And _.
14 that's what's causing some delays in soms of the stuff I 15 want to get accomplished.
16 We're like -- I feel my organization is like 17 -- like I'm riding around in a 737, kind of changing an 18 engine out in flight. You know, I have -- you know, and 19 I'm not laying there. I'm changing out. I'm up there 20 flying at 30,000 feet. And I'm changing engine on the i 21 flight.
22 That's what I'm doing because what happens is 4 23 I have responsibilities in oversight for this 50.54(f) ;
1 24 effort that's going on. I have to watch that. I have to 25 keep an eye on it, you know.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202i 234.4433
] .
50 1
I was ready to iscus a stop work ordar two 2 months ago on-50.54(f) in my organizations. And I didn't i 3- have anybody. It was me and a couple of people that were 1
4 overseeing this thing. !
5 So we're trying to do that plus other things i 6 plus get our group manned. So we're writing position j 7 descriptions as we're also trying to keep this other F
8 effort going.
1.
9 So you got it. I mean, it's absolute correct.
10 We do not have them. My position is I'm trying to be l
!- 11 different. And I am writing po::.ition descriptions for
. 12 overy one of my people in my organization.
i 13 It's not something that we can do overnight .-
l 14 because of what else I'm doing. If I had nothing else to 15 worry about, I could sit down and do it.
l
- 16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL
- Let me ask you this.
1 17 You are a Senior Vice President.
j 18 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
i 19 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Now here you're 4
20 saying you're writing position descriptions. Why can't l 21 you give that to Human Resources people? What's your 22 day-to-day relationship with Human Resources?
23 MR. MILLER: We generally -- good relationship 4
24 with them. I've developed a good relationship now with 4
25 Ruman Resources in my new job. And what we do is we give NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS
, 1323 MH00E ISLAND AVENUE N W.
(202) 234 4433 wASMtNGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 234 4433 7
i
. . 51 !
I them drafts, you know, and come stuff. And thsy work with 2 as on it, l
i j 3 And then very effective with -- how we got to I j
4 the posit' ion description, it took us, I'd probably say, l
l 5 three weeks to get to the point where we could post our 4
2 6 new jobs. And that's writing position descriptions.
7 And from that flow the posting descriptions.
- 8 And from that flow -- we have to grade all of these jobs, !
- 9 the jobs -- you know, you have to go out and do and look l
! 10 at the industry and grade them all because what are my 11 directors -- what is their pay grade? What -- how much do 12 I pay Larry Chatfield? You know, because it's -- how does 1 13 it relate to the industry? How much do I pay my managers-14 that come in and work for me? I 15 So before I can understand that, I've got to ;
16 tun a job description for them. So you see is that it's ;
17 like starting a brand new company with us. But you got it 18 is that we just have not done a good job of that. ,
19 And what that hurts, too, is when you talk
-20 about the position descriptions and then the ability to'do 21 reviews and the only reason you hadn't done a review on 22 ryrol, he doesn't work for me. He's temporarily assigned 23 to me from Engineering.
24 TEAM MEMBER MOMRWINKEL: He told us that as of 25 January he was permanent with Chatfield but he came on NEAL R. GFH3SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (200 2364433 WASHINGTON, D C. 70006 (202) 234 4433
. -- - .. . - - - ~ - . _ - . . - .- . - - . . - . ~ _ . - . - .
D' l i board tcmporarily in Ssptsmbsr, but in January hs want -- i 2 MR. M!LLER: I thought he was still temporary. !
3 I didn't think we had made a -- because I thought he was j 4 part of this deal about getting through the reviews. I l 5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Well, he thinks he's l 1
6 been permanent since January. -
l
,' 7 MR. MILLER: So, you see, is that, you know, 1
- a we have been using a lot of folks.
< j 9 And I'm getting ready to do Larry's 10 performance appraisal from last year. Now, Larry has only a
i 11 worked for me for three months. so I'm going to have to, l l ,
t '
12 you know, go back and spend some time with Larry about '
13 what I'm going to do with him. But, you know, next week -
14 is I'm going to do Larry's performance appraisal for next 15 month. ,
i 16 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Would it surprise you .
I '
- 17 if we told'you that we have heard this week very, very 18 negative things about the Human Resources Department? i 19 MR. MILLER
- Oh, sure.
4 20 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Lost -- it would
, 21 surprise you?
l 22 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
23 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: It would or it would 24 not surprise --
a i
25 MR. MILLER: It would not surprise me.
~
NEAL R. GROSS !
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRGERS ' l i 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
d (20m 234 4433 WASMNTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433 i
. . 53 1 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Lost cpplications, '
2 incompetence, et cetera. ,
3 MR. MILLER: Yeah. And they're taking a lot 4 of hits right now as that what we're going through with 5 them is that the pilot on this new selection process. And 6 we're working with them every day, you know.
7 And some people are -- when people go through 8 a change as s:gnificant as this, I mean, we're making 9 people do things differently than had ever been done 10 before in this company. ;
11 What kind of a guy do you want? What kind of l
12 a person do you want in this job? What does it look like? l 13 Don't just go hire that guy and hire that contractor and.
14 bring him in here. I don't want him in here. We're not 15 doing that. So when you force people that have been doing 16 things a way for 20 years to do them differently, people 17 generally get upset with that.
18 And are there problems in HR7 Absolutely.
19 Are they working them out with us? Absolutely. You know, 20 Ed Richters and Bob Roma, I mean, they're jumping up and 21 down to try to help us out.
22 They went out and hired a contractor to come 23 in and help us with these assessment centers. They felt 1 24 they were overloaded with that. They had an issue with 25 that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRitERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2364433 WA$MINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433 0
)
54 1
sono of tha peoplo didn't liko tha training.
2 some of the people thought it was the best training they 3 ever had in their life, one of the guys, Mario Bonaca, 4 who works for me, he says he doesn't understand how he was 5
able to promote and hire people over his last 25 years.
6 He says, "I just went through this training 7
program because it's amazing," he says, "how this thing 8 looks and how's a better way to do, you know, a review of 9 people to hire them." He's just so impressed with it.
10 He stood up in front of the key management
. 11 group and told everybody, "This is a new way of business.
12 And I fully support it." When you go through that, you're 13 asking a lot of managers that used to be able to call up-14 and say -- well, I turned one around. It was on Unit 2.
15 The guy got up to HR. And HR called me and 16 says, " Hey, you know, they're hiring a contractor from 17 outside."
18' I says, "For what job?" And he told me. I 19 says, "Well, it was never posted."
20 "They said no, they didn't want to post it."
21 I said, "They don't have any choice." I said, 22 'I've got two people that work in ISEG," Independent 23 Safety Engineering Group, "and they would love to have 24 that job. You've got to post it."
25 "No, I can't do this. And this is going to NEAL R. GFU3SS CoumT mEPOmTEms AND TRANSCASEmS 1323 AMODE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W (3W)2364433 WASMINGTON. D C 20co6 (202i 234 4433
55 1 affcct m3," n2h n2h nah nth nth. "HR is not going to.a 2 So, you see, it's expected when you're making these 3 managers do things differently than has ever been done 4 before, but it's the right stuff.
5 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: You mentioned Mr. Bonaca?
6 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
7 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: I believe I heard Ted 8 Fergenbaum yesterday tell us or the day before that he was 9 somehow involved in some overall root cause analysis that 10 was global that --
11 MR. MILLER: Yes, '91.
12 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: -- picked up on many 13 issued, including the NSCP. Could you expand on that? 7 14 didn't get a chance to probe him and really understand 15 what that was all about. )
l 16 MR. MILLER: I don't either. You know, I have l l
17 not read Mario's report. I heard a lot about it. !
)
18 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: He works for you; right?
19 MR. MILLER: Yeah. He's temporarily 20 reassigned for a couple of months to Ted Fergenbaum.
21 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: For this express.
22 MR. MILLER: For this express team. Okay.
23 What -- in fact, again, you have to excuse the I
24 dates. I'm not sure exactly my dates. Around the '90s 25 time frame is that things were in pretty tough shape NEAL R. GFH3SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 23u433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 2344433
. . 56 1 arcund hOro. Thcy waro g tting a number of people. I was 2 gone. So I really don't understand everything that was 3 going on inside of the company. I was gone to 4 Philadelphia Electric.
5 But the -- John Opeka and other folks decided 6 that "We've got to sit down and understand what our 7 problems are." And what they did is they had a number of 8 people that were on task teams to try to understand: What 9 are the problems within NU7 10 And I guess they had come up with some pretty 11 good reports. And I guess one of them that really was 12 kind of outstanding -- and I have not read the report --
13 is one from Mario Bonaca's crew that talked about things -
14 that management has to do differently. And my 15 understanding is that if we had implemented the things 16 that they recommended in that group cause, we would not be 17 where we're at today. It was, my understanding was, 18 really a good report about things.
19 What I have read is there's another report 20 that was put out about employee concerns about the same 21 time frame. <
22 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Schmidt report.
23 MR. MILLER: Yeah, Dick Schmidt. Yeah.
24 I have used that. You know, I looked at it 25 when I first came back. I also had somebody -- and I NEAL R. GrFK)SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRieERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W Gelf) 2M WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202)29 433
. . 57 1 didn't knsw Dick Schmidt htd dono thic, 10 that I had Mark ;
2 Venable. !
3 I said, you know, " Mark," I says, "I'd like to 4 understand this work. What is it within NU here that's --
5 especially in my organization, what is it that's causing 6 employees to go other places with their concerns?" And he 7 came out.
8 In the process of him doing that, Dick Schmidt 9 called me. He says, " Don," he says, "you know," he says, 10 "I did something like this in '90 '91."
11 I says, "I didn't know that. Could you send 12 it to me?" So I got that about the same time I got the I 13 Hark Venable report. And it was almost word for word. .-
i l
14 And I said, " Wow." I said, "Okay." So I 15 started putting some things together in my house. And 16 bave you ever seen an improving station performance chart? I 17 I put together an improving station performance chart that 18 picked up on the areas from those two reports and put them 19 down with some action plans to get more effective 20 leadership and more effective management to allow us to 21 the point where we then can do something on those employee 22 allegations and hoping that will reduce them.
23 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: If I recall, the Schmidt 24 report had two principal findings. One had to do with 25 distrust of management. And the other had to do with NEAL R. GROSS CDURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 13rJ RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(202) 234 4a33 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (202)234.4 4 3
58 f
1 inctnsitivity of firot-lina manigam:nt in baing responsiva 2 to employee concerns.
3 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
l 4 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: That's pretty Management ;
5 101-type stuff.
6 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
7 .
TEAM LEADER HANNAN: I'm still waiting to hear a you tie in what Bonaca is doing in the overall root cause !
9 --
10 MR. MILLER: For now?
11 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Yes.
12 MR. MILLER: Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you 13 were talking about Bonaca back in '91. ..
14 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: No. Currently.
I 15 MR. MILLER: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I 16 vent way -- I went in the wrong direction. I'm sorry.
17 I don't know for sure what Mario is working on j 18 right now. I'll give you -- tell you exactly what I do 19 know is that the company -- I was in the board of tructees l 20 when this was decided is that the board said they wanted a I 21 Nuclear Committee of the board. And Gail DePlanque is 22 going to be a head of that Nuclear Committee of the board.
l 23 And then I didn't hear anything else about it 24 for some time. Then I heard that we were hiring an 25 outside person, George Davis from -- used to be at Boston NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (M 2364433 wASHtNGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433
i 59 1
Edicon, tho Srnier VP; ho'o now rctired -- is going to be i
2 an assistant to Gail to help give information to the 1
a
, 3 board.
4 !
What George has put together is a group of !
5 people to help him do that. And I don't remember all the ;
i 6 names. I know Tom Murley is one. And I don't know. I !
7 !
can't remember who the other names are. i h
) 8 And what happened is that that group was given !
9 {
1 a tark. And I' don't know whether it was from Gail or j
^
a j 10 whether it was from Bernie Fox or whether it was from the !
3
- 11 board. I'm not sure where it came from. But it was ;
- 12 decided that they needed to understand is what are the i
13 fundamental causes for why we got to the problems we are.
14 in Northeast Utilities.
'- [
! 15 And they started to put together a team to do l; j i i i
$ 16 that. Bob Busch came to me and says he'd like to use 1
1 i
17 Mario Bonaca because of his board had read his '90 report {
l 18 and thought that was pretty good and they'd like to have '
19 him pick up with that.
20 And they said it's a lot of respect in the 21 community, you know, the nuclear community, that they felt 22 he could do that. And also George Davis was happy with 23 Mario. I says, "Well," I says, "I'm trying to form my 24 organization here. And," I says, "and this is really 25 going to hurt me," I said. "But if that's what you think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRGER$
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (302) 23 4a3 wAsweNGTON. O C 20006 (202) 2W433
)
l
. i 60 l 1 is best for tha company,a I cOya, ay:u con h2vs him."
2 So I don't know any more than that. I know 3
Mario is -- there was an issue about whether or not to l 4 call it a root cause or a fundamental causes issue. That 5 came up. And then Ted explained, you know, what he was 6 doing relative to the differences in the names.
7 And I just -- I didn't see any issues. And 8 that didn't give me any heartburn whether you call it a 9 fundamental cause or a root cause, it's still the same !'
10 thing's going to come out.
11 So I got a call from Mario that George Davis 12 wants to speak with me. And that's the extent I know of 13 what Mario is doing right now. ..
14 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: So is Gail DePlanque 15 working full-time here? I was under the impression she 16 was --
17 MR. MILLER: No, no. She's on the board.
18 okay? She's on the board of trustees. She's now the 19 chairman or I don't know what you call it. She's head of 1
i 20 the Nuclear Committee of the board of trustees. Whether 1
21 you call it the chairman or the director, I don't know 22 what that title is, but she is the head of the Nuclear 23 Committee of the board.
24 TEAM MEMBER MOKRWINKEL: So some of these 25 names like Tom Murley are going to serve under her on this NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 234 4 433 WASHINGTON, D C. 20006 (202) 23m33
.. 4 61
, 1 liko ovarcight board. Io that whnt you'ro saying?
2 MR. MILLER: Yeah. There's a Nuclear 3 Committee of the board, which includes other members on 4 the board of trustees. That's the Nuclear Committee of 5 the board. And who is a consultant to that is George i 6 Davis.
7 And George Davis in order to give them 8 consultation has formed a group that works for him. And I ,
9 think it's called a Nuclear Committee Advisory Team, NCAT ,
10 I believe is -- again, don't quote me on that. It may be l 11 a different acronym. So Nuclear Committee Advisory Team, 12 NCAT.
13 And in that is -- that's where Tom Murley -
14 appears, in that group. So he's not on the board of 15 trustees. He's off there. And then Gail is still on the ;
16 board of trustees. !
17 And then Mario is providing assistance to the 18 NCAT. Also my staff engineer, Larry Levy, out of my 19 Berlin office is providing administrative service to that 20 -group of people.
21 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: Let me ask you this.
22 How would you describe yourself in terms of management 23 style? And how do you think that the employees perceive 24 you?
25 MR. MILLER: I am not afraid to put humor in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (302) 238 4 433 *ASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202 234 4433 1
. . 1 things. You know, I try to koop things light. I think s
2 I'm a pretty strong is that I liko -- I balieve in
- 3 teamwork. I believe in people working as a team. But I l
l 4 get very frustrated with somebody that's -- that claims to l 5 be part of the team but's not.
6 And I generally get aggressive with him. You l
7 l know, when I say -- not aggressive like beating him up or i
j 8 -- but I tend to get, you know, in their face a little bit
! 9 nore when I feel that people aren't being honest with me.
l l 10 I hold people accountable is that if somebody I
11 does something wrong, I try to understand why that person 12 did something wrong.
13 .-
14 l
! 25 m
l 1 17 18 i 19 l l
2o 6
21 1
! 22 l 23 I i 24 1 25 l NEAL R. GROSS CX)URT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR19ERS 1
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENut. N W (M g364433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433 1
1 1 . .
s i 1 j xmumu u
! a
[.
i t
j 4 4
6 l
7 i B I
i 9 i
l 11 l
l 12 I
f 13 ..
14 15 1
16 17 l
18 4
19 1 h
20 21 l 22 i
! 24 25
{
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRGER$
- 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (200 2344433 WASMrNGTON. O C 20006 (202) 2 9 4433
,,,.,-wn,- ,,.-em -, -e - - - ~ = = - ' ' ' ' " ' ' " ' ' ' ' ' " " ' ' " ' " ' "
u, 2
6 e
eumunummer M
t 10 11 And so he then went back, and I let him go l 12 back to work. And the guy's been doing great ever since.
I I 13 But he put that message out. And so people take Miller -
14 walks, you know.
15 And that's why I think a lot about and I worry ,
i 16 about the lower-level guys, you know, and what they're 17 doing out there. And what I sometimes miss -- and I think is it's a fault of mine -- is -- and I keep trying to make it 19 work -- is I tend to go like this.
20 And I forget middle management because I went 21 sud did this for this guy to try to help him out, I felt 22 -- feel for the guy.
23 24 So here these guys are all walking around and 25 supervision is kicking their ass.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W gg g WASHINGTON, D C 20006 (202) 2344433
65 .
a i 1 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Thty tell them, !
- l 2 " Boss, Don told me to take a walk." '
l l 3 MR. MILLER: So he comes up to me and says, l i !
4 "Go talk a walk." Then I put this out, you know. And I j 5 actually put some stuff out to make sure that he did it.
6 But I care a lot for the people here. And but j 7 I am tough. I am tough on management. I am tough on 8 peers. And I generally smile a lot, you know, with people 4
9 out there and trying to keep the good face on with the
! 10 guys. And I think I'm fair. I think in my dealings with i
11 unions, they always said I was very fair, tough but fair.
12 I think the employees would probably, you 13 know, hopefully would probably say the same thing. People 14 missed me not being here from some of the stuff, you know, I
15 the "To the Point."
16 First of all, people laughed at it because I 17 used to write it myself. It was hand-scratched, you know, 18 a lot of times. Sometimes it was typed, you know. But-19 people got to the point they were waiting for it every 20 morning. And it stopped. So it's -- people feel that 21 loss right now.
22 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: It stopped when you left?
23 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
24 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And it's still --
25 MR. MILLER: Still gone, still not.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REpomTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 AMODE 19tAND AVENUE, N W (3te) 2364433 WASweNGTON. O C 30006 (202) 234 4433
. 66 1 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: It's not back up Egmin?
2 MR. MILLER: No. They used it with other 3 stuff, but it's still -- the message is every day was try I 4 to talk about this issue, respect for each other, you !
l 5 know, and talk about trust, you know.
6 And I just fed them everything. I told them 7 everything I knew came out on those sheets. And I hid
, 8 nothing from the employees at Millstone.
9 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: One of the things we 10 told, have been telling for several weeks to Bill Temple 11 and that we told Ted Fergenbaum the other day is that as 12 we try and go along, we'll try and provide positive i
13 feedback. ..
' j 14 And I think one of the things we earlier said l 15 about the baggage comment about you, which I think we have 16 talked through enough that we understand where we're 17 coming from, in terms of positive feedback, as we promised 18 Bill and Ted, I think the way you've described yourself is 19 the way we've heard from most people their description of ;
4 20 you, that you're very approachable, that you're a regular i 21 kind of guy. And several people have said what you did, i
22 that you have a problem with skipping this management 1
23 level and going right down to the shop floor.
24 But then, conversely, we have heard new 25 criticism of you, if you will, that you're.not here as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS i
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 23m33
- ..m . . _ . . _ _- _ . _ . . , _ - - _ . _ _. - - _ _ - - _ - ._. _ _ . _ _- _ . _ . ~ _ _ _
67 ;
I much as you used to be. Psople are up3st by the fact that 2' you're in Berlin, rather than here.
3 And, again, you're talking about trust and 4 communication being issues that are significant here. I l i
l 5 think the people on the shop floor are saying, "Here was a '
6 vice president we could talk to.
i And now he's gone."
7 What's your reaction? Why are you in Berlin? ;
8 MR. MILLER: That's my job.
9 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: That's where the job
- 10 is situated? i i
11 MR. MILLER: That's where my office is. One i
- 12 of the things that when we did this is I really had a real l l
13 issue about leaving Millstone. You know, I'm honest as - ,
l l
14 hell with you guys, you know, is that I struggled, you i
15 know, with Bob and told Bob, "I don't want to go." I i
i 16 said, '
"I need to be here."
1 17 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Bob?
18 MR. MILLER: Busch. And he said, " Don," he l 19 says. And he sat down, and he talked to me. He said, 20 " Listen, Don." He says, he says, "You are such a force 21 here that if we want you to become oversight, we want Ted 22 to pick up the reins and be that force that you used to 23 be," he says, "I've got to get you out of here," he says, 24 "because what's going to happen is if you stay here, 25 people are going to still come and hang on to you." So I ,
1 NEAL R. GFUDSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRitERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) M WASMINGTON, D C 20006 (2C2) 234-4433
)
a . . . + --- - a4---- - a 4
- m i
68 j 1 agrsa with that.
, 2 The other thing is that I said about "To the 3 Point." He says, you know, he says, "I feel that 'To the l 4 Point' was effective," he says, "but that was you " . He 5 says, "It's now the power five and the changing 6 organization." He says, "It can't be you anymore." He i
7 said, "It has to be Ted. It has to be Fred. It has to be a the unit directors," he says, "so it has to stop being 9 you."
10 And I struggle with that. I thought about it 11 over the weekend. You know, I was, you know, quite l
12 bothered by all of this. And finally I says, you know, 13 he's right, you know, is that I need to move off from ..
14 this. I can be effective. I can contribute a lot to i
15 where oversights had failed in the past with NU.
16 I had talked a lot with Tim, you know, Martin 17 and various other people in NP.C about one of the failures 18 at NU was the Quality Program. So I f91t I could 19 contribute to that. So I says, "I need to do that." And 20 so I accepted with Bob. I said, " Yeah, you're right," I 21 think, his point.
22 So I'm here maybe two days a week because I 23 still have to care for Conn. Yankee. I still have to care 24 for Seabrook from an oversight standpoint. And he said, 25 "I think if you stood here, you'd just be oversight of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRetERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(207) 2344433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 2344433
69
) 1 Milletono. You wouldn't be ovorcight of CY." So that's
)
- ? why he has an office for me up there. Plus, they wanted l l
3 me close to Bernie and Bob and Ted to be able to give some 4 counsel about what's going on.
3 5 You know, going through things, cY was not 6
quite a troubled plant, but it was in pretty bad shape. I 7
walked in there and was able to turn it around and was 8 part of the turnaround at Peach Bottom. So nobody else in 4
9 NU has been through any of that kind of stuff except me.
10 TEAM LEADER RANNAN: I wonder if we could take 11 a short break --
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah. . I l
13 TEAM LEADER RANNAN: -- for about five .-
i 14 minutes. !
15 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off the 2 ;
16 record at 8:58 a.m. and went back on the ,
17 record at 9:06 a.m.)
18 MR. MILLER: The guy I was talking to out 19 there just raised a concern with me. I've known Rick 20 since I came to work here in '73. He was a reactor 21 operator. He's now shift supervisor. And I said, "How 22 you doing, Rick?"
23 'And he said, " Good." And we were talking 1
24 about he's going through a training he's taking his crew 25 through. This is training week for him.
~
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS
- 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (har) 2344433 wASMtNGTON D C 20006 (202) 234a33
_. - -. - - - - - . .~ . _ _ . - . -. - - .
yo 1
And I eaya, "H&y, Rick," I says, "how are tha 2 guys doing?" I said, "I haven't been able to get down to
- 3. see them."
j 4 He says, " Yeah, we noticed."
4
, 5 And I says, "Well, how are they doing?" I 1
6 says, "Are they hanging in there?" I says.
l 7 He says, "No," he says, " things are back where i
8 they were in '94."
] 9 I says, " Whoa. Talk to me." And so he told a
10 me about some problems he was having. And it's back to i 11 the stuff that we saw back in '94.
l 12 "New management team in place," he says. And 13 he says, " Don, they don't remember all the stuff that you 14 taught us back in '94."
15 I said, "Okay." So we went through some 16 stuff. I said, "Okay." I says, "All right." I says, "I 17 tell you what." I says, "I need to do something with is this."
19 He looked at me kind of funny. He says, 20 "You're not going to let me lose my job, are you?"
21 And I says, "Come on, Rick." And I says, 22 "Would you go whisper in Mike Brown's ear?" And I says, I 23 said, "We don't have a lot of people in my organization 24 yet," I said, "but these are significant things you're 25 talking about." I says, " Michael is my director in charge NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTEk$ AND TRANSCRISERS tars RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W M 2364433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20006 (202) 2M-4433
71 1 of Ov0rsight."
2 He says, "I know that."
3 I said, "So go whisper in Michael's ear." I
{
4 says, "I don't have a lot of people that I can throw on 5
this right now, but I can throw some resources at this," I-6 said."
7 And, finally, I says, "I've got to go." I e says, "And I'll let you know." I says, "I apologize I 9
can't take care of it personally," I says, "but whisper in 10 Michael's ear." I said, "If you don't see something 11 happen in a week, call me personally."
12 He says, "I'll do that." We shook hands on 13 it. So, I mean, it's -- that's what I do. ~
14 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Okay. One of the points 15 that we picked up on this week that I just want to explore l 16 briefly with you has to do with another vehicle that is i 17 available to the people at Millstone for getting their 18 issued worked. It's called a DPO process. And we 19 understand that that process has not been used to its 20 fullest extent.
21 can you explain maybe why you think that is?
22 And are you working on trying to improve its use or are 23 you satisfied with the current status quo?
24 MR. MILLER: I'll tell you I'm meandering in 25 that process. I know it's a differing, DPO is differing, NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (2GF) 2344433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
.72 l 1_ profc3cicnal opinien. I belicvo it'o a procoss that thsy 1
1 2 developed in Engineering.
3 What -- I really don't know. You know, I have 4 to look into it. I really have not done anything with it. ,
5 And I wrote it down because it's something I'm going to '
6 have to get into and understand more about the process. I l
7 have not paid any attention to it. !
8 One thing that I did in -- start is one of the 9 problems we've been having is effective corrective action 10 at Millstone. And one of the reasons I felt we had poor 11 effective corrective action is a lack of a mechanism to l 12 easily identify problems. j 13 And what I did is I developed the corrective-l l
14 action process, which is the ACR, adverse condition j l
15 report. One of the things I never envisioned when I 16 developed it is that it would be a good way for employees 17 to vent their concerns and, in fact, is.
18 Larry's organization and even I will sign a 19 adverse condition report if an employee is concerned about 20 putting their name on. And to me is that one of the 21 things we got that was really very helpful -- and they're 22 still working on implementing it -- from the NRC was that 23 they think the ACR process is helping to get the people to 24 identify concerns but there's no feedback to the 25 originator.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCMSERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 2364433 WA$MINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234m33
13 l 1 so wo'ro in tho procosa of chznging that to l
2 that there is processed feedback to the originator on all '
3 the ACRs. So I think that was a good comment from you 4 guys about that last piece. So I felt that would work. l 5 I have not looked at the DPO process.
6 Okay.
TEAM LEADER HANNAN: The other concern 7 that you have indicated your interest is in teamwork, but 8 prior to you getting to that point, I think you l
, 9 established, at least in my mind, for the record, that i 10 historically there had been a rather dramatic 11 compartmentalization, the fact you didn't even know about 12 certain issues that were in the Engineering Department, i
13 for example, in your previous position here as a VP. --
14 I think the team has gotten a sense that there 15 is a serious silo effect present and alive and well at 16 Millstone. We've talked to a number of different managers I
17 at the director level who seem to have their own view 18 about the question of: one, how do you ensure that the 19 employees on the shop floor understand it's their 20 responsibility to bring issues forward and it's expected 21 that they do that.
22 And then, a similar question for the 23 first-line supervisors, what is it? How are they judged?
24 How is their performance judged on how they receive those 25 kinds of concerns?
4 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRAN$ canters 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (2012) 2S44 433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 234 4433
. . ,4 A 1 W3 ceked at IC10t diffcrcnt dircctors and got 2 three different answers, which left us with an impression i
3 that there is still a lack of teamwork, a lack of lateral l 4 integration in the organization. {
i 5 What are you doing about that in your present 6 capacity? Do you have that concern, the same concern? !
7 MR. MILLER: Yeah, I've had that concern since l i
8 December of '93 about the silos in Northeast Utilities and 9 particularly the silos at Millstone. And what I was i 10 trying to do and I have done unsuccessfully is bring down l 11 those silos.
12 They were starting to work. They were 13 starting to have an org. and people moving around betwee.n 14 the units. But to say that I solved the silo problem at 15 Millstone, I just said I did not.
16 So the silos in my opinion still exist. There 17 is even more silos now in my opinion now that the 50.54(f) 18 issue is going on with Engineering. I think there's still 19 now some silos developing between Engineering and the 20 three silos at Millstone.
21 So what am I doing? Now in my current --
22 first of all, I recognize that what you said is true.
23 What I'm trying to do now is -- in my current role is 24 force commonality, force things that -- common practices, !
25 especially in the area of the implementation of these task NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (302) 2k4433 W ASHINGTON, O C 20006 (202) 2W433
75 1 accignm:nto, 10 forcing that down through.
2 And I'll be also as I start rolling out these 3 plans and the communications plan that we have developed '
4 is to force the expectations. And where are we going with 5 the Employee Concer.4s Program is a couple of things that 6 has really made me feel heartened yesterday is in the time '
7 that I had with Dennis Keating down in South Texas is that 8 the issue about how I'm dealing with employees' concerns 9 and the ACR process is right in line with what they're 10 doing.
11 The other things that they talk about is that 12 first thing they felt is they needed the CNO's 13 expectations put out very clearly. And we're on that -
14 track. They talked about the need for a communications 15 program. And I'm ready to roll that out. I 16 The issue of -- they're also addressing is the 17 issue of performance appraisals is that we need to get 18 supervisors' and managers' performance appraisals 19 reflecting on their actual implementaticn of the Employee 20 Concerns Program and see if, in fact, they are working in 21 that.
22 So that currently does not exist. That is not l 23 a check-off in the Employee Concerns Program in the 24 appraisal process, but it will be as we're redoing that.
25 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Excuse me.
NEAL R. GROSS I i COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W.
(200 7344433 WASHINGTON, O C. 20006 (2C2) 23444 n i
76 1 MR. MILLER: I'n corry.
2 TEAM LEADER RANNAN: Go back over that point 3 again. I wasn't clear that --
4 MR. MILLER: What happens is -- right now is 5 if you would look at most of the personnel appraisals of 6 managers and appraisers, there would be no discussion in 7 there, especially the departments that may have had some 8 employee allegations about their failure to address the 9 employees' allegations or their failure to address 10 employees' issues and resulting in going elsewhere. So 11 there's no accountability for line management when these 12 things happen.
13 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: I'm under the impression 14 that issue had been remedied and has been put in place for 15 the last round of appraisals that were done. There was a 16 specific competency where people at the manager and 17 supervisor level were rated on how well they dealt with 18 employee concerns. Is that --
19 MR. MILLER: People had no data to rate 20 people.
21 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I'm not sure that 22 what you said is true, John. I think this goes to the 23 fact that we've gotten split answers.
24 Some managers we've talked to said what John 25 said. Others have said, " Gee, that sounds like a good NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 7364433 wASMwGTON D C 20005 (202i 234 4433 I
l
)
, , 77 '
1 idsa. Wo'll hava to look into it."
2 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
3 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: I think that's what l 4 he's talking about, the silo effect. There are some silos 5 of the place here that are saying, "This is what we're i
4 6 doing." Others it's like they would get hit in the head l 7 with a club.
J 8 MR. MILLER: So it should be hard to rate l
- 9 somebody when most people have no knowledge of there's an 1 10 issue in their area. So we've got to get that piece fixed 11 first with a measurement thing so we then can get some
- 12 feedback into certain areas when we tell them that there's )
} 13 failures. ..
a j 14 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: See, this goes back l 15 to what we were saying earlier about the 21 Employee f ,
l i
16 Concerns Program cases. l j 17 MR. MILLER: Right.
l
. 18 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: You if you're in 19 charge of that I think have to devise some sort of a i
20 system between yourself and Larry that says, " Engineering a
21 has X number of employee concerns."
l 22 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
3 23 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: " Nuclear Safety Group 1
1 24 has so many employee concerns." And that's completely
, J
! 25 within your bailiwick, you see.
l NEAL R. GROSS ;
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS l 1373 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W I
]
(30t) 2364433 wASMWeGTON. D C 20006 (202) 234 4433 !
_. . . .- - - . - _ - ~. . . . _ _ . - _ _
78
, 1 MR. MILLER: Right.
2 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And, again, maybe 1
3 this goes back to the baggage comment. They're saying, 1
4 4 " Don comes in with good ideas."
l i
5 MR. MILLER: Yeah, i
j 6 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: You said you've been 7 aware of the problem since December of '93. Two and a 8 half years later, we're still spinning our wheels trying to solve a two-and-a-half-year-old problem.
. 9 And, again, 10 not beating the point to death, but I think that's the
- 11 kind of thing that employees are looking at and saying, 2
12 "What's going on here?"
l 4
13 And I made the comment to several managers, -
14 "Look, this has worked in the EEO area. And it's worked
{.
{
15 in sexual harassment. If you're not aware of EEO concerns 4
16 and upward mobility, then you don't get a good performance
! 17 appraisal as a manager. If you allow sexual harassment to
- . 18 take place in your work area, you're going to be severely i
- 19 dealt with by management."
20 I think that's universal across the country.
21 I think at Millstone they have to have the same level of i
, 22 awareness about employee concerns.
i 23 MR. MILLER: You got it.
24 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: You wouldn't tolerate
! 25 racial slurs by a supervisor. I think you have to equate 4
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTFRS AND TRANSCal8ERS 4
1323 RMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
79 1
mistrcata:nt of employaa3 in tha cmployso concarns arca 2
the same as you would treat that supervisor who used l 3 racial slurs. And I think that's got to be viewed that 4 seriously.
I 5 MR. MILLER: Yeah. And I agree. So that's --
6 you know, I don't -- right now is the appraisal process is 2
s 7
i part of a doing this for -- an employee suggestion is that B
we do 360 interviews of managers and supervisors, which 9
mean that the employees get to rate their managers, you 10 know. So that is a process we're moving into. That has j
- 11 not been done yet.
i 12 So, you see, there's a things that we're
- 13 developing that would help us reinforce. Right now ..
14 i without reinforcement is I could talk and talk and talk 1
- 15 until somehow you affect a manager's, you know, wallet, 16 you know, or image is that he's not going to change his i 17 behavior.
18 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Speak about the issue 19 about the expectation at the employee level, worker level. .
l 20 What is your intention to improve that situation? How are j 21 you going to solve that particular problem?
22 MR. MILLER: I'm sorry. What?
23 TEAM LEADER MANNAN: Well, you talked about 24 the supervisor --
25 MR. MILLER: Supervisor, yeah. ,
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVENUE. N W (folt) 23sda33 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (2021234 44JJ
80 1 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: -- and thD managar --
4-2 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
i 3 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: -- competency rating.
I 4,
4 What about the expectation that the shop floor employee 5 needs to bring forward the issues and shouldn't be 6 reluctant or hesitant'to? In fact, that's his 7 professional responsibility to bring those issues forward. l j 8 How are you going to improve that area?
9 MR. MILLER: Well, we started it last year is
\
i j 10 that we did a lot of talking and finally came up with this 11 Partnership 2000. And what that is I said the need is 12 we're spending this time with managers and supervisors, 13 talking to them about how to behave differently. ..
14 I says, "You need to tell the employees that 15 they can expect different behaviors from their managers."
16 And so that's what Partnership 2000 was intended to do.
4 17 A result of this section here on training l
18 initiatives by Harry Haynes and Eric DeBarba is that 19 they're not only looking at managers and supervisors, 20 they're looking at employees also. So it's a total 21 package looking at everybody.
22 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: But training, you train 23 people until you're blue in the face.
24 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
25 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: How are you going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (20lt) 234433 WASHINGTON. O C. 20006 (202n 234 u)3
81 1 encuro that ths b haviore ero changed? Wh:t cro you going 2 to do to make it happen and monitor the change?
3 MR. MILLER: Okay. That will be done through 4 the appraisal process for the employees.
5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: It's going to be 6 tough to appraise if you don't have PDs.
7 MR. MILLER: That's all part of this package, 8 putting it all together, is that it's a whole new way of 9 doing business for this company.
10 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: Again, you know, I 11 just am shocked that a company that's this major --
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah. '
13 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- doesn't have --
J 14 employee position descriptions in place. I mean, that's l 15 astonishing.
16 MR. MILLER: Yeah. There's some that are. I 17 Most of them are very old. And we've got to go through is and brush them all off, and which ones ata, probably which 19 ones don't. And we need to redo that.
20 See, the other thing is we're talking about i
21 going to system teams. If we go to system teams, you 22 know, then there's elimination of supervisors. All of 23 that has their job descriptions for as we move into that 24 direction. As you start assigning people to teams and 25 going through a selection process, we're going to have to NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCA18ERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
. . . . - - - . ~. - - - - . - . - _.. .
82 1 hnv3 tha positicn d 2criptions in placa befora wa make 1
l 2 that move.
)
3 Part of my job in Oversight is to tell them i
4 they can't make that move until that happens.
4 5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: John touched upon it
. 6 a second ago, but let me beef it up a little bit. An i
i 7 employee came in with a suggestion. And I brought it by 8 most of the other managers we've talked to this week. The j 9 employee said the term even " whistle-blower" has a 10 negative connotation.
! 11 And I know your Employee Concerns Program uses 12 the word "concernee," --
l 13 MR. MILLER: Yeah. .-
14 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- which I think is l 15 good. We're going to try and use it ourselves.
16 But this employee said every position i 17 description, particularly since you don't have them now, l is you're redoing them, should have a positive professional i 1 l 19 responsibility, which John used those words a minute ago, I i 20 --
21 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
1 l 22 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: -- to come forward i !
23 with safety concerns, whether those be nuclear or a broken l 24 stepladder that could injure somebody or your electrician i
j 25 that could electrocute himself because of some safety i
- NEAL R. GROSS OcuJmf REPORTEm$ AND TRANSCRSEms 1323 mHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (M 2364433 WASMtNGTON. O C 20006 (202i 234 4433
as 1 failuro. And if you did that and you put tha burdsn on 2 the employee to come forward with any kind of concern they 3 had, that would take the stigma away -- ,
4 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I 5 TEAM MEMBER MORRWINKEL: -- from coming 6 forward with something.
7 MR. MILLER: Sure.
8 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And we've used the 9 word " teamwork" here many times. The employees view 10 teamwork as it's used in Millstone as meaning if you raise l 11 concerns, you're not part of the team.
]
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah. !
13 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: And that's a ..
14 tremendous stigma and a tremendous burden that we have 15 heard repeatedly. I'm sure you've heard it repeatedly.
16 It's addressed in the Quinn report. Schmidt, I believe, 17 touched upon it and so on. And nothing has been done to le fix it. l 19 And this employee said make it a positive )
1 20 burden and make it a burden on the supervisors to be j 21 appraised for how they deal with employee concerns. And, 22 again, that's just a suggestion that we've heard and for 23 you to think about.
24 MR. MILLER: See, one of the other things, 25 too, that in my mind in talking with a few of my people is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPomTEMS AND TRANSCmitEms 1323 mMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (act) 2364433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202> 2344433
1 ona of tha rc2 cans -- y:n just w2nt through tha reaeons 2 why the Employee Concerns Program is not working well.
3 Part of those same root causes is why this 4 place won't do self-assessments. You know, it's like i
5 pushing a wet noodle, you know, up a blacktop road with 6 these people trying to get them to do self-assessments.
7 And there's starting to be some inroads into it.
8 But to me self-assessment is the same thing, 9 recognizing that something you're doing is wrong. And to 10 get managers and supervisors to self-assess their 11 department, it's the same reasons that I believe is that 12 they're not willing to listen to employees. There's very 13 strong parallels. And I think in my opinion if I fix the 14 one, the other one will automatically be fixed with it.
15 John, I don't know if I answered your ! l i
16 question, you know, about this what I'd do about 17 employees.
18 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Well, I was expecting to !
19 hear what Carl said as a solution that the recommendation 20 that this employee made, you had already adopted that and , l 21 picked up on it and were going to see that that was 22 accomplished.
l 23 MR. MILLER: Yeah. ,
l 24 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: I didn't hear that from i
25 you.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20006 (202: 234 4433
_ _ __ . _ _ __ . _ _ _ __ .. _ _ . _ _ _ . _ ._ . ~ . .
a5 l 1 MR. MILLER: Okay. 1 1
2 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And, you know, if I I l 3 didn't hear it from you because you're not going to do it, 4 you've got some other way or some other solution, that's 5 fine. We're not in a consulting role here.
6 MR. MILLER: I understand.
7 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: We're simply attempting 8 to develop the facts so we can make recommendations that !
9 would improve the process. If you've already adopted that 10 approach, we can simply recognize that. But we're going l 1
11 to be making some kind of recommendation in this area 12 that, you know, would make a change in the right 13 direction. _
14 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I think this thing of 15 position descriptions is what is -- I mean, we've got to l 16 get that done. You know, I think that is absolutely --
17 your suggestion about putting this in about bringing forth 18 issues is a good point.
19 But to me is that wherever you put that, John, 20 if you put it in a position description or if you put it i
21 in a letter of expectations from Ted, you know, to them, 22 wherever you put them, is if you don't hold people 23 accountable for it, then it means nothing. I mean, if you 24 don't hold it through or put it in an appraisal process, l
25 if you don't hold it by how the supervisors deal with l
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS 1323 AMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 236 4433 WASHINGTON. D C. 20006 (202) 234 4433
86 1 thcm, th n it's all for n2ught. You might es wall --
2 you've wasted your time in doing any of that. It's how 3 you go about reinforcing what you've just said. Okay?
4 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Okay. We touched on "
5 before also, and I wanted to come back to it because 6 wasn't fully comfortable with the answer you gave. On the 7 corrective action, the follow-up to the Quinn report, --
8 MR. MILLER: Okay.
i 9 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: -- there has been a l 10 sentiment expressed to us by team members that were on the 11 Quinn team that their voice is not being fully utilized in 12 not only the development, but also the execution of that J
13 corrective action plan. ..
I 14 MR. MILLER: Okay.
15 TEAM LEADER RANNAN: You indicated you were 16 going to be bringing at least one person from that team I
17 into the NSCP program. But there were a number of people !
18 on that team that evidently have expressed an interest to 19 be part of the solution.
20 MR. MILLER: Yeah.
I 21 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And they don't feel that 22 they have been embraced. Why is that? Why wouldn't you l
23 want to avail yourself of that opportunity?
24 MR. MILLER: And I'm trying to think. My 25 previous discussion was I thought I had. You know, what I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 2364433 WASHINGTON. D C 20006 (2026 234 4433
87 j i did is th2t eno of tha things that I was vory cicar with 4
2 them is that their job is now over. They've given me some l l
3 valuable data. And it's up to me how I use that data.
l l
! 4 But their job of bringing that thing up and raising it up l l
5 to the. level that-I was aware of it was what was needed l
l 6 and for me then is to take off and fix it.
?
l 7 When I did go off and fix it, we gave it back l 8 to them and says, "Did I meet the mark in what you wanted )
. 9 from me?" So --
10 TEAM LEADER MANNAN: Yes, but that's not --
i 11 MR. MILLER: Let me finish.
I 12 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Okay.
i ;
1 13 MR. MILLER: So to me is I felt that I was ..
,' 14 being responsive to the team. Now, what the team would ;
\ .
15 like, if I took that whole team and had them come work for )
16 me, I can't do that. You know, everybody would like to 17 come and work for me is that when I put in this i
j 18 application, these postings for these eight jobs, these i
! 19 eight managers' jobs, I had 60 applicants that requested i
l 20 for that job, John.
} 21 So to me is that we're using Eric Fries. He's l 22 a project manager. He's out there talking with our people i
I 23 about this is that the training initiative, we have a lot 24 of folks involved with the training initiatives of what
! 25 we're doing in the -- everything. Larry is working on his 3
- NEAL R. GROSS COumT REPORTERS AND TRANSCAtSER$
1323 AM00E ISLAND AVENUE, N W i (act) 2364a33 WASMsNGTON. O C 30006 (202) 23uo3
..__m , _ . . . , . . , , - _ . . ,.. . _ , , ,, -
..._m.
88 1 part, hio part of going out and ch;cking with thsea 2 employees.
3 They would love, all of them, to come and work 4 for me. But I just -- you know, I can't just take the 5 whole 3,000 people and put them in Oversight.
6 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Can we leave you an 7 observation?
8 A . MILLER: Yeah, yeah.
9 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: I mean, in the short time 10 we've had, we certainly can't judge validity or motives --
11 MR. MILLER: I understand.
12 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- or anything.
13 MR. MILLER: Yeah. --
14 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: But let me just clearly 15 state an observation and get your reaction to it. Based a
16 on the people we have talked to, we have certainly sensed 17 a potential chilling effect with the very people that were 18 utilized to help point out the problems of chilling within 19 the Millstone environment in that, for whatever reasons, 20 at least some of the members of the team that was used to 21 look at the culture problems have the sense that their 22 effort is just another window dressing evaluation that 23 management accepts, says, " Gee," wonderful things about 24 it, and then puts it up on the shelf and goes on.
i 25 And those signals came across very strong.
NEAL R. GROSS
' COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRl8ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 (2c2> 234 4433
89 1 And, oc I egid, wa h2v n't hid tho cpportunity to ausssa 2 --
3 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I understand. ,
l 4 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- the reason for that --
5 MR. MILLER: Yeah, I understand.
i 6 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- or whether it's valid or 7 not, but it is there. And from the standpoint of probably ;
8 one of the worst backlashes that you might suffer in your 9 current efforts to improve the culture here, one of the 10 last things you want is a starting of a feeling of 11 disenfranchisement --
12 MR. MILLER: Oh, yeah.
13 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: -- vithin the very group -
14 you used to investigate it.
I 15 MR. MILLER: Oh, yeah. I agree, Randy.
16 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: And I don't know what's 17 going on, but there's something there. And I think it's 18 something that needs to be dealt with.
19 MR. MILLER: Yeah. I appreciate it because I 4
20 probably have met with most of them and talked with them 21 in my office one on one since the review, some of them I 22 more than once.
23 You know, Mike Quinn has been in my office 24 weekly talking to me about things and "Where are you 25 going? What are you doing?" And Mike I think, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20006 (202i 234 4433
90 1
tha lect time I talked to hi:2 felt really good chout wh:ro 9.4 1
2 I had been with this. a few other folks have been 3 in my office, you know, talking about things.
s 5
4 So I'm not -- I'm taking it as data from you. ll i ;
' So please don't take my reaction as being defensive. i !
4 6 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Right. I --
7 MR. MILLER: I'm trying to, you know, is that s I just felt I had been really bending over backwards with 9 this group because, you got it, if I disenfranchise this l d
10 group, then I've really blown it.
11
) And I'll give you one example where they came
- 12 to at en masse, I mean, phone calls, E-mails, and stuff.
- 13 And they said, " Don, this is bull shit." And what it was 14 was this idea of a survey.
- 15 TEAM MEMBER HUEY
- Yes. I i
16 MR. MILLER: And what they had gotten was the -
l 17 survey was'trying to validate what they were doing. '
And I
! 18 says, "No." I says, "What I'm trying to do is I'm trying i
- 19 to develop a measurement tool."
l 20 I says, "You gave me valuable data." I says, 4
i "I can't every quarter get you together and go out and do 21 22 another one." I says, "I need something that I can be i 23 really out there. And you only interviewed, you know, a 24 small percentage of the employees. I want to give a 3
25 chance for all the employees to do it so can see if what i
4 NEAL R. GROSS J, 000RT REPORTERS AND TIuNBCRSERS
?
123 RM00E 10 LAND AVENUE. N W.
(308) 234 4433 WA8MoeGTON. O C. 30005 (202) 234.a433 i
J
91
- I wo're doing 10 cffcetivo."
.1
- 2 I said, "This is not a validation process. l l
. 3 Please" -- you know, I spent days going out and talking l
- 4 with these people about this survey. Somehow somebody put ,
5 out the message that said that this purpose of this was to
! 6 validate the data.
f 7 I said, "Oh, God, it's not to do that." I l
l 8 says, "I'm trying to develop a measurement tool here," I
- 9 says. And I used my analysis about a trust meter on my
- l l
10 desk. I said, "In lack of that, I need something." l 11 So not to go through all of that again, but l 12 that's -- you know, I had just been -- because I know I do 13 not want to lose this group, Randy. I've been really -
i l
14 trying desperately to keep them involved. i 1
15 So I really take your comments to heart. And l 16 I'll go out with them next week. And I'll meet with every 17 one of them again to try and see if there's something I'm 18 missing.
19 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Well, realize we're not 20 suggesting --
l 21 MR. MILLER: I know that.
22 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: -- any action here.
23 MR. MILLER: No.
24 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: All we're saying is we 25 got that sense from these folks. !
l NEAL R. GROSS Coumf mEPORTERS AND TRANSCmetEmS !
1323 RMODE ISI AND AVENUE. N W (202) 234 4433 wASMiNGTON. O C 20006 (202) 234 4433
s 92 i
7 1 MR. MILLER: Ycsh.
2 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And, you know, I wasn't
- 3 trying to suggest you ought to hire them all back.
4 MR. MILLER: No.
5 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: And that's not the point.
6 MR. MILLER: That's what they would like me to 4 7 do. It's amazing how many people want to come to work for l
8 me in this organization. The people think that oversight 9 is going to be a neat place to be. And it has a lot of 10 authority.
11 Like I said is that we were ready to stop j 12 Engineering in their tracks. And some people said, " Whoa.
l 13 These guys are really serious about this business." .-
l 14 So but what is it? You gave me some very 1 l l 15 valuable piece information.. And what I need to do is go l i
I 16 out there and feel around in my way of doing things and 4
1 17 understand what is it. If they're upset with me, I need j 18 to understand that and go address it.
- 19 TEAM MEMBER HUEY
- Well, again, I wouldn't 20 focus it all on you. They're seeing the whole NU j 21 management.
! 22 MR. MILLER: I'm part of it. I'm part of NU 23 management. I can't separate myself from that. That's -- '
24 and I don't want to. So --
- 25 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: Don, we have --
NEAL R. GFU3SS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCReERS 4
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (20m 2344433 WASMiNGTON, D C 20006 (202) 23u433 1
. _ . . . . _.._ _ . __ _ _ _. . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ .- m . _ .- _ . _ . - . . _ _ -
93 .
i 1 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: I havo cno last --
2 TEAM LEADER HANNAN:
} Let me --
3 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Okay.
4 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: We want to try to wrap 5 this up in the next few minutes before we close out.
6 Randy has a question. And then we'd like to have any 7 additional observations, comments, or questions you have
, 8 for us.
t 9 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: Just when I looked back at j 10 my notes from the earlier part of our discussion, I wanted i
11 to get your specific reaction to one observation we had A
12 made. And that dealt with the aspect of independent i
13 review. .-
j 14 Obviously for promoting your idea of openness j 15 to get employees to come to you with their concerns, U
- 16 you've recognized the fact that you have to be able to i
17 give them some independent review.
18 Two data points that we got during this review
- 19 here this week, one on the side of an employee who didn't l 20 realize the extent to which Nuclear Safety Concerns j
21 Program could provide him with an independent technical j 22 evaluation. You know, he was of the mind that, "Well,
, 23 gee, I really wouldn't use NSCP for my concern because !
24 they're just going to come straight back to my management i 25 chain that I'm already having trouble with." That was one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRSERS
[
1323 RMODE t$ LAND AVENUE. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHtNGTON. D C. 20005 (202) 23m33
- ~ _ . . - - --. . . . _ . - - . - - . - . . - - . . . - - . - - . - . .. -
. o 94 ,
1 dats point.
2 on the other side of the ledger, we were 3 talking with one of your NSCP peers, Jim Tyrol. And we 4 sensed a lack of appreciation or guidance that had been 5 given to him. You know, he wasn't adequately armed to be I
6 able to explain to employees how the program could provide j 7 independent evaluation.
, 8 MR. MILLER: Okay.
, 9 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: So you combine those two, i
10 and you've got a problem there as far as getting the 11 message out to your people.
12 MR. MILLER: Yeah, yeah. You're right. One !
13 of the things we haven't told them about yet is that the-14 impact of putting NSCP inside of Oversight is that we've 15 got the most technical people working for us.
16 Mario Bonaca's organization, the PRA, i
17 Probablistic Risk Assessment, folks, the PSA folks, i
18 Probablistic Safety Assessment, folks, the people that do 19 all the safety evaluations,_now work for me. It's Don 20 Dube's group. It's a very, very technical group of people 21 that has really helped Larry out with some of these 22 technical reviews.
23 We have not talked about that because the move 24 of those people into my organization hasn't happened yet.
25 It's getting close to happening. We're getting ready to NEAL R. GROSS COURT mEPORTERS AND tmANSCmiSERS 1323 mMODE ISLAND AVENUE. N W (302) 2344 433 WASHINGTON. D C 30006 (202) 234-4433
. . 95 1 mako all tho numbers -- that may hsvo hsppened this wack 2 while I was going is we're trying to get all of them, the 4
3 dollars and the cost control workups, so they can make 4 their transfers.
5 Also is we're trying to set up a technical 6 board with myself as chairman and Larry in there with me 7 and my technical directors as a place where people can 8 come to if they're not satisfied with the NSCP process.
9 In other words, if somehow you get into it and 10 you don't get your concerns resolved and you want some 11 more technical work, you want somebody else to listen to 4
12 you one more time, come to Don Miller's staff meetings.
13 And we'll talk to you. So that has not been put out yet-14 as another chance for folks. So there's some l
15 communications.
t 16 What I got from South Texas was a nice flow 17 chart that talked about how people can -- how you can get
{ 18 your concerns taken care of. One of them shows the NRC, 19 go right to the NRC if you like. But wo show them the 20 other paths that you can do things with. So we're going 21 to -- we've been working on that communications piece.
22 And, again, a real nice document from South Texas that I s
23 may plagiarize quite a bit to help identify.
24 Again, not to be defensive, Randy, is that, 25 you know, there's so much that I'm trying to do here and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR$ERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE N W (202) 2364433 WASMiNGTON O C 20006 (2C2) 2344433
. , so 1
gst a hold of things end not to be, you know, bleming that 2 -- I don't have an organization yet. I 3
We're just -- there's so many things that we l 4 have on our mind about we need to get moving on. '
And what 5 we're'trying to do is -- right now is the tower is i 6 burning, you know, and we're standing on it. And we're 7 trying to get the fire out in the tower so we can continue 8 building the rest of the tower. So that's the facts of
{
9 where we're at right now.
I 10 Probably coming to my comments is that I 11 believe that this is a significant issue for us in terms 12 of -- and I take it as that. And I think is that I've 13 been talking this issue of trust. And I put it on one of.
14 my slides at the MAP meeting, Millstone Assessment Panel 15 meeting. And it got into "New London Day." And it was an 16 editorial about Don put on trust fix, and they said 17 " Develop trust in Millstone, the problems go away." It's l 18 for example.
19 And what I've got to do is get the rest of the
{
l 20 people in line with that. My discussion kind of ended i
21 with very impressed with South Texas. And what they said I 22 is the biggest thing was that the decisions that 1 l
- 23 management makes -- and maybe it's trust is more than D
i 24 being trustful to come forward with issues. It's whether i 25 or not they trust that the management team is making the
! NEAL R. GROSS l COUNT REPOATERS AND TRANSCAeERS 1323 AMODE ISt.AND AVENUE, N W 3
(atr) 2M4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20006 (202) 2 9 4433 t
r ,. , , .., - - . ,
'* P 97 1
1 right d:cisions.
You knew, 10 tho managtm:nt tsam loading
, 2 us in a direction that we're going to be successful?
l 3 Because if they don't feel that, then it also i
4 affects their feelings about, "Geez, if I can't trust them i
5 to lead me in the right direction, I also can't trust them "
6 because the next time they have a layoff, I'm going to be 7 there."
8 I mean, there's a whole lot of actions. I 9
mean, you know, your own personal feelings start happening 10 when you don't trust that the people that you're working 11 for are getting you in the right direction to success.
12 That means we have to show them is that we as 13 management understand what are the fundamental problems-at 14 Millstone, Northeast Utilities, and that are we going out 15 there and fixing those fundamental problems or are we just 16 paper-dressing things.
j 17 I think it's something that the management, 18 NU, has to come to grips with because I think the 19 employees right now don't believe that we're addressing 20 fundamental issues. And part of this is I think we're 21 hoping Mario Bonaca will come up with some -- !
22 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: What is your assessment 23 of how long it's going to take this company to address ,
24 those concerns and come up, get back on track?
25 MR. MILLER: What's the date? Today is May.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCm4ERS 1323 AMOOE ISLAND AVENUE. N W. ,
(30m 23e4433 WASHWeGTON. O C. 20006 (202) 234-4433
. _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ . . ~ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ . . _ ~ . . . _ _ _ . _ . . . _ .
- 98 '
1 I would probably.ecy middle of Jun3, first of July.
2 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: You may have 3 misinterpreted my question.
! 4 MR. MILLER: No, I den't think so.
. 5 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: How much time do you 6 think it's going to take you to get back to where you want
! 7 to be in terms of the state of operational performance?
8 TEAM MEMBER HUEY: And employee trust.
l 9 MR. MILLER: Employee trust? If they, the l
10 employees, see us as a group of people, management, a 11 group of people, that are acting as we, you know, and 12 recognize our issues and are communicating those issues j 13 and showing a change in behavior that is addressing those
[ 14 issues, I believe the employees will jump ahead real fast.
I j 15 I think the employees are looking for a real 16 sense of leadership around here. And I think is -- if l 17 they see that, I believe they'll jump on it real fast.
18 And I think we can get ourselves back up in a year real i good.
19 20 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: All right. Don, I want 21 to thank you for coming out this morning. I recognize 22 you're under a personal hardship after getting in so late 23 last night, but you really appreciate you spending time 24 with us and your frank and honest assessment.
25 As I said earlier, we're going to arrange to NEAL R. GROSS CX)URT REPORTERS AND TRANSCASERS t323 RHODE ISL.AND AVENUE. N W (Stm 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 20006 (202i 23m33
99 1 h2vs you rcview ysur tran2cript. This is a writtGn 2 description of the process that we'll use to accomplish 3 that. Our transcript custodian will contact you and 4 arrange for an appointment, which he has --
5 TEAM MEMBER MOHRWINKEL: You keep that.
6 MR. MILLER: Okay.
7 TEAM LEADER HANNAN: With that, the time is 8 approximately 9:45. And we'll conclude your interview.
9 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter was concluded 10 at 9:44 a.m.)
l I
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRISERS 13r3 RHODE ISLAND AVENUE, N W (302) N wASMtNOTON. O C 20006 t202i 2W433
- P Osk 1
) l l
CERTIFICATE l This is to certify that the attached I proceedings before the United States Nuclear !
Regulatory Commission in the matter of: !
l Name of Proceeding: Interview of Don Miller Docket Number- n/a
)
Place of Proceeding: Waterford, CT I
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original ;
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduce 5'to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and i accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
~
L 1 Chris Baker official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS MD TRMSCRBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVENUE NW M 234-443 WASHINGTON. D.C. 20006 (202) 234 4433