Engineer Memoirs
that they accepted a job. Generally, people have not said, "Well, this reflects on the kind
of supervision he exercises."
I'm sure there have been instances, although I don't know of any personally. I'm sure
there have been instances where somebody had a supervisory relationship with a
contractor which was abused in one way or another and there was a subsequent
business relationship after the guy retired from the government. I remember one small
incident which isn't like that at all, in which a contractor up in Minnesota helped one
of our lieutenants buy a new set of tires at a discount, and both got in all kinds of
trouble.
There are definite violations that occur.
Q:
Yes, and there are limits.
A:
There are limits. But the matter of whether you could accept employment with a firm
that you dealt with while you were in the government, I think the view in the past has
been that that wasn't an ethical violation.
Depending upon the job, I don't think I'd have any trouble with that, either. I have
trouble--and it's partially my personality--when, in order to pursue a business
relationship, I have to make contact with somebody with whom I've had either a
personal relationship before or a business relationship before, as a government
employee.
I don't have any trouble at all with the following. I work now for Burdeshaw
Associates, Limited, which is a consulting firm. In this job, we advise defense firms on
things they should do to get defense business. We do not make any contacts with the
Defense Department on their behalf. We do make contacts with the Defense
Department to gather information, but not ever with this firm's name involved. It
doesn't bother me. I think it's perfectly legitimate business, if I make contacts with one
firm in the course of that, to go over and try to sell my wares to some other firm.
Where I have trouble is, if I have worked with somebody in the Defense Department
and have a relationship with that person, to turn around and try to use that relationship
to get favored treatment when I'm pursuing personal business.
On the other hand, one can't be ridiculous about this. Bill Burdeshaw brought me on
partly because of associations we've had before, which he had thought were favorable.
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