Ethics Review Says Hiring Scandal Was Isolated
An independent ethics
review of Boeing senior-level hiring practices found no widespread
conflicts, but identified several areas for improvement and said
Boeing should be more consistent in enforcing existing hiring
policies and procedures. The review, led by former Sen. Warren
Rudman, was prompted by the November firings of Boeing Chief
Financial Officer Michael Sears and missile defense executive
Darleen Druyun, who were accused of unethical conduct surrounding
Mr. Sears' recruitment of Ms. Druyun while she was a U.S. Air Force
employee.
Boeing says Mr. Sears and Ms. Druyun discussed job opportunities at
Boeing before Ms. Druyun stopped working on Boeing-related Air
Force programs, providing grounds for firing them both. Mr. Sears,
through his lawyer, has denied any wrongdoing. Ms. Druyun has not
commented on the matter. The incident prompted the Pentagon to put
on hold a $27.6-billion deal for the Air Force to lease or buy 100
Boeing 767s as refueling tankers, pending the outcome of several
criminal investigations and other reviews, possibly in May.
The Justice Department, the Defense Department's inspector
general and the Securities and Exchange Commission are all
examining the matter, and lawmakers plan hearings on the so-called
"revolving door" between government and industry.
"Boeing had a process in place, we just want to make that
process better," Mr. Rudman told Reuters.
The Rudman report,
commissioned by Boeing and released Tuesday, said Boeing's former
job application process did not ask if a candidate had been
involved in Boeing-related activities or had filed a
disqualification statement covering Boeing. The report concluded
that the situation involving Mr. Sears and Ms. Druyun was an
isolated case. But Mr. Rudman took issue with Boeing's "sporadic
adherence" to its own written hiring policies and procedures. In
his findings, Mr. Rudman acknowledged his review was not "an
exhaustive audit of Boeing's hundreds of government and former
government hires over the past five years," but rather an
examination of senior-level hires where the biggest risk of
conflict could arise.
"There is no ‘magic bullet’ to ensure that everyone
follows the established policies and procedures in hiring
government employees, but additional training, safeguards and
centralized oversight and control can substantially reduce the risk
that mistakes will be made in the hiring process," Mr. Rudman wrote
in the report.
The ethics review is the culmination of a three-month
investigation into Boeing’s hiring practices. Boeing
requested the review to identify weaknesses in its hiring systems,
particularly as they relate to government employees.
"You have to have a checklist," agreed Mr. Rudman. "You don't
rely on anybody's representations."
Boeing Chairman Lew Platt said the company has already begun to
implement some of the report’s recommendations. "We are
tightening up central oversight, improving record-keeping,
monitoring the records of people as they move through the system,
increasing our audits ... and improving training in all of these
areas," he said in a statement.