Engineer Memoirs
The follow-on contracts were largely electrical and mechanical, with the initial contract
largely for civil and structural work.
Q ..
How easy were the Air Force representatives to work with?
Well, they varied, but basically, while we didn't always agree on everything, I would
A
say the coordination and cooperation were excellent. The fact is, I still have close
friends among the Air Force people whom I met at that time. Any animosity caused by
the secretary's decision for the Corps to supervise construction certainly didn't interfere
with getting the work done. Both at the headquarters and in the field there was a great
deal of very close cooperation required and given.
Q ..
What about, the liquidated damages provisions?
I'm sure there were some liquidated damages. The fact is the contracts were very
A
closely drawn, with milestone dates and other requirements. But without reviewing the
contracts I couldn't specifically comment. In my opinion, on Air Force insistence, we
put some unreasonable dates in the contracts. They felt these would be an added
incentive to the contractor to meet his schedule. I'm convinced that in some cases these
deadlines were counterproductive, but this was one of the areas in which there was a
good deal of disagreement. These were attempts to put into the contracts very critical
and short dates through a series of milestones as measures of contractual performance.
While I remember that dates were not easy to meet, I don't remember major difficulties
in terms of liquidated damages.
Q ..
I found in our office records a transcript of an interview. I'm not sure whether it
actually was an interview. I think it was more in the form of comments that you made
about CEBMCO after you'd gotten to Dallas. You said that one of the biggest sources
of difficulty at CEBMCO was the fact that the Air Force was over committed so that
fund availability was a constant concern. Would you like to comment on that?
A
Well, I don't think I have anything to add to that. They were trying to run a tremendous
program with four major systems at the same time. Certainly, funding to meet a rigid
schedule was a problem, also their feeling that they wanted to be certain that we didn't
pay more than necessary and that we got strong competition for the contracts. There
is nothing wrong with that, but some of the deadlines they insisted on mitigated against
the best actual bids. There was always a question ofjudgment as to how and when to
structure the bids. Certainly, the more restraints and milestones and other requirements
put in,
more contractors would be inclined to add contingencies.
So things, as I say, did not always work together, but again, these were problems of the
moment. I think one of the most significant decisions we made-and this was made by
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