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Q. If your engineering/construction firm or agency's executives are trying to conceal an "Inconvenient Truth,[1]" do you reveal it or just go back to work?

  • 1.  Q. If your engineering/construction firm or agency's executives are trying to conceal an "Inconvenient Truth,[1]" do you reveal it or just go back to work?

    Posted 04-27-2021 09:36 AM

    Let's say it involves the very real potential of injury or other harm to the public-at-large, project field representatives, or once it is in operation may not actually occur until some 3 to 5 years out.

    Consider constructed projects such as hotels, bridges, highways, water/wastewater plants, landfills, and schools.

                           "I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure:
                            try to please everybody all the time."                                                   
    ― Herbert Bayard Swope

    [1] Prior to commenting, selectively read portions of "Truth. Lies, and O-Rings: Inside The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster," by Allan J. McDonald; with James R. Hansen




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    William M. Hayden Jr., Ph.D., P.E., CMQ/OE, F.ASCE
    Buffalo, N.Y.

    "It is never too late to be what you might have been." -- George Eliot 1819 - 1880
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  • 2.  RE: Q. If your engineering/construction firm or agency's executives are trying to conceal an "Inconvenient Truth,[1]" do you reveal it or just go back to work?

    Posted 04-27-2021 04:29 PM
    This is a tough situation and one I've fortunately never had to face, I posed a somewhat related question in the October 2020 "Asking for a Friend" discussion on ethics. Steve Starett's response can be found in the thread. Being careful to cast judgment, I had in my mind - when asking this question - development projects I'm aware of that have not necessarily been in the broader public's best interests.

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    Mitch Winkler P.E., M.ASCE
    Houston, TX
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