If you see something unsafe and verging on collapse, aren't you obligated by your ties to society to try to stop it?

Here's what I'm getting at.

A few days ago I asked PSBJ Corp., the big Florida-based engineer, if the three former employees who had recently pleaded guilty to stealing $36 million of company money were providing to federal prosecutors information about illegal company campaign donations in hope of gaining leniency. PBSJ's spokeswoman didn't want to get into the matter and PBSJ's attorney, Mark Schnapp, said the few violations PBSJ committed didn't amount to much and the company should not be charged with any crime or violation.

Then the Miami Herald, which has covered the story aggressively and broken important news related to PBSJ's campaign donations, had a long interview with Maria A. Garcia, one of the three admitted felons and the former payroll supervisor. What she told them amounts to a bombshell that could reverberate within PBSJ for years but also has implications for other engineers and architects.

Garcia described what she claimed was a long-practiced system through which the company and senior managers, including the former chairman, directed employees to make donations to key candidates and illegally reimbursed them. Garcia's job allegedly was to make the illegal reimbursement, she told the Herald. A lawyer for the former chairman denied in the newspaper that anything illegal had been done. You can read the rest yourself via the link below.

Let's for a little while longer give PBSJ the benefit of the doubt. Garcia seems to have provided the newspaper as buttressing evidence only one faxed letter that the Herald described. The rest is her word alone as far as the widespread systematic practice she alleges of "straw man" donations. We know that her boss at PBSJ Corp., former chief financial officer W. Scott DeLoach, pleaded guilty to organizing such donations. Instead of immediately taking the reported word of someone who is an admitted prolific thief and liar and now is hoping to trade her revelations for a lighter sentence, I'll wait.

At the same time, I'm worried not just that the accusation could be true but that the campaign donation disease, a form of legal corruption that drains the vitality from our democratic institutions, may have contributed to an atmosphere of laxness among the financial staff at PBSJ. We already know it has dragged down the ethics of engineers in the capital of pay-to-play in public works—New Jersey—and countless other places.

The context, partly explained by Garcia herself in the Herald, is that PBSJ is just trying to keep up with the competition in gaining access to and consideration from elected officials. Homebuilders, finance companies, health care companies, communications companies, attorneys, they all supply donations to parties and politicians. Engineers do so in order to enjoy the same "stature," if you can call it that, and keep even with direct competitors.

What a pathetic road for engineers to travel down. I find it especially telling that the embezzlement scheme run by the three admitted felons at PBSJ was cloaked partly as election campaign donations: the secret bank accounts kept by DeLoach were disguised as political action committee accounts and named that way.

If the accusations are true, PBSJ and its implicated managers should be held responsible. Rules are rules and systematically cheating to improve political influence should be punished. What I'd rather see are engineers and architects supporting the shaky democratic underpinnings of U.S. government by collectively refusing through ethical codes ever to make political donations again.

November 7, 2006

It is about time someone has taken note. I suggest that you look into the dealings of any large A&E or E/A take your pick. I think the entire system is replete with corruption and payoffs and influence peddling that assures the vile will trump the talented.

I hope that we can bring change. The nature of our publics works projects alone is evidence of how many incompetent firms with political acumen (if you want to call it that) succeed in their wily ways.

Lets develop a plan to end the disease and begin a new system to build a future for America. Is it just me or has anyone noticed that pound for pound we are even in the ballpark with our international counterparts.

Some tell me this is business as usual, deal with it - I say no - my grandfather told me the reason he came to America and sent his kids here too (my father) was because in America it is about what you know not who you know - or know to pay off.

Anthony Hedayat

October 11, 2006

Unfortunately, you are correct. From our elected government, federal, state, and local as well as the Enrons to PBSJs, our entire system is corrupt. The idea is get it while the getting is good and hope you never get caught.

Ethics are just a subject that is taught in college or university but, by the time individuals get to college or university, it is too late and the only thing it really teaches is to be better at breaking ethics and the law.

I guess it is like sports. It isn't the love of the game that players play for, it is the love of money and the power that goes along with it.

Thank you for printing your article.

Bill French
Enviroconsult