The circumstances surrounding the re­cent demotion of Tetra Tech’s president, Sam Box, point to the very foundation of the consulting engineering industry: integrity.

Tetra Tech’s trademark slogan is “Complex World—Clear Solutions.” Integrity is not complex. Integrity is a choice. You either possess it or you don’t.

That the CEO and board of directors acted swiftly after becoming aware of the discrepancy is commendable. How they acted may be less so and may have far greater implications for the company, its 8,500 employees, its customers and industry colleagues.

In an Oct. 3 SEC filing, Tetra Tech says the credentials of the company’s president “have been misreported.” There is nothing clear about that statement. Did Mr. Box accurately state his credentials, but the firm, for some reason, misreport them? Or did the company inadvertently report what was not true?

Does Mr. Box hold a civil engineering degree from the University of California?  This is not a difficult question to answer. The only thing standing between a clear yes or no is a phone call.

If the president’s credentials were not true, then does a demotion to a vice president’s post, one that is responsible for contract risk management and project management training, make sense? Risk management requires an abundance of integrity, especially in a publicly traded company in which managing risk is tantamount to managing shareholder wealth.

Training project mangers requires more than sharpening their technical skills. In a public company, just as in a public agency, project managers spend and collect money that does not belong to them. More so, engineering project managers stand between an abundance of calculations and technical documents, and the decisions of their clients rely on the accuracy of information presented to them. Even an honest mistake in a calculation potentially carries heavy consequences. What then should a customer make of a project manager or company who “misreports” information?

The stage is set for a period of meaningful introspection at Tetra Tech. The first page of the company’s well-written, 10-page Code of Business Ethics says, “We work to create an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect by being honest, fair and consistent. We will treat all employees fairly and impartially, and we will consistently follow employee policies and procedures.”

Can there be mutual trust and respect without truth? Or, in the absence of truth, is trust only something promised  but never achieved? If Mr. Box’s demotion is judged to be  fair based on his long record in the industry, is it—and will it be—consistent with the punishment meted out to other employees who fail to tell the truth? Will all employees who come under a cloud of uncertainty be judged impartially, without regard to tenure or position?

People are not perfect. Compassion is an admirable trait, and there is no question that Tetra Tech has a long record of successfully serving the engineering industry. But the firm is in a position to make a dramatic statement about truth and trust and the value of integrity. Tetra Tech should step outside of the words of the Oct. 3 SEC filing and make a clear statement to their shareholders, employees and clients about the exact nature of Mr. Box’s predicament, a statement so clear and transparent that anyone in an instant can understand it.

There is no need to drag Mr. Box through more anguish. Truth, like sunshine, clears the path for moving forward. Anything less is a lingering cloud.

Philip A. Shucet
Chief Development Officer
The Dragas Companies
Virginia Beach, Va.