Wow, another hit to G4S and WSI. Look folks, I hate writing about these things because I truly want companies to be successful and be shining examples of what is good in this industry. But not everyone can be the Swiss Guards of the industry, and there will always be companies that ‘just don’t get it’.
But I also think it is important to not reward incompetence and poor management. That we need to be reminded what the consequence of poor leadership is from time to time, hence why I post this stuff. So either G4S and WSI learns from this and makes corrections to the way they do business, or they will continue to lose contracts and money. And we should all learn from this, and ensure we are doing everything we can to continuously improve our contract and providing the necessary service that our clients need and demand. Especially if your client is asking you to protect nuclear materials…..yikes.
Every one of these incidents over the years usually involved one of two things. Either poorly constructed/poorly funded contracts, or poor leadership/management tasked with running these contracts. Sometimes poor leaders are the result of a lack of funding for salaries–you pay peanuts, you get monkies. Or sometimes even with a substantial salary, a poor leader is chosen because of a poor vetting process, which is even worse. That a company has no idea what a good leader is, or they just don’t care.
It is also amazing to me that companies make millions of dollars on contracts like this, but they put minimal effort if any into finding good leaders or training up good leaders or putting together policies that grow good leaders within the company. It is an investment that is essential, and glaringly obvious, and yet PMSC’s continue to screw this up.
I mean McDonalds and it’s Hamburger University does a better job of training and growing leaders within their organization than most of today’s PMSC’s. lol And now G4S, the largest security company in the world, is learning this lesson in a very direct and financially painful way. –Matt
US nuclear site ends security contract following nun’s break-in
Sat, Sep 29 2012
By Timothy Gardner
The U.S. government’s “Fort Knox” of weapons-grade uranium storage has ended a contract with a unit of an international security firm two months after an 82-year-old nun and other nuclear activists broke into the site.
The managing contractor at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, site, B&W Y-12, a unit of Babcock & Wilcox Co, said late on Friday it will terminate the contract with WSI Oak Ridge on Oct. 1. WSI is owned by security firm G4S, which was at the center of a dispute over security at this year’s London Olympic Games.
The move came after the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an Energy Department agency, sent a letter on Friday to B&W Y-12 President Charles Spencer saying it had “grave concerns” about his company and WSI providing security at Y-12, the nation’s only site for storing and processing weapons-grade uranium.
The letter recommended that B&W terminate the subcontract with WSI and work with it to take over security operations after the July 28 break-in.
The nun, Megan Rice, and two others cut perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where enriched uranium was stored. The site was shut temporarily after the breach.
An investigation by the Energy Department’s inspector general last month found a security camera had been broken for about six months and was part of a backlog of repairs needed for security at the facility.
The NNSA repeated on Saturday that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said the incident was an important “wake-up call” for the entire nuclear complex.
“The security of our nation’s nuclear material is the Department’s most important responsibility, and we have no tolerance for federal or contractor personnel who cannot or will not do their jobs,” said NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha.
After the incident the NNSA’s top security official and two other federal officials were reassigned. In addition, top officials at WSI were removed and officers associated with the break-in were fired, demoted, or suspended without pay.
WSI’s parent company, G4S, found itself the focus of a political and media storm this summer in Britain over outsourcing of security after it failed to provide enough guards for the Olympics.
WSI did not immediately answer a request for comment about the ending of the contract.
It seems few other jobs will be lost over the incident that brought new questions about the government’s outsourcing of sensitive security operations.
B&W said in a statement it will offer employment to all Y-12 security police officers and active union workers with WSI Oak Ridge.
The NNSA and Department of Energy are engaged in reviews of security operations from the contractor, to the federal management, to the security model, McConaha said.
The final review will begin after Chu asks outside observers to analyze current protection of nuclear materials and explore more options for protecting the sites.
Chu received a classified review of the Y-12 incident earlier in the week by the department’s health, safety, and security office.
Story here.