TVA management by the numbers?
November 8, 2009
I’ll tell you a little story about an experience I had in Infantry basic training and try to relate it to present circumstances.
I was selected to attend Engineer OCS before I committed to Army service. There was one catch – I first had to go through 16 weeks of basic training at Ft. Jackson, S.C. It was not a pleasant experience but a very useful one.
I reported to duty on December 10 with about 200 other privates to Company B on Tank Hill. They even showed us a movie about “The Late Company B” from WWII. This was worse. More than half of the men were draftees and they hated with a passion just being there. It was not unusual for ten to fifteen of them to fail to show up on Mondays, AWOL
The next cycle for training did not begin until January 21 so what you had was a bunch of malcontents pulling Post details from garbage pick up to moving furniture and everything in between. Morale was zero for most of them.
There was no leadership in the interregnum and there were frequent fights and rowdiness in the barracks. A man even threatened me in the mess hall with a butcher knife. Company commanders were changed twice. But then things began to change for the better when Capt. Levy became the commanding officer.
He called me into his office and told me he wanted me to be the enlisted “platoon leader” after he had learned I had some military training of sorts in a prep school. My career in the military and later in life seemed always to place me in a challenging position; I never shied away from any of them.
Even in Washington I played a significant role in the eventual dissolution of the Urban Renewal program by doing what I’m trying to do now – to point up the obviously bad original law and subsequent management mistakes. TVA has been costly to citizens of the area and not only to TVA taxpayers (aka ratepayers). The detrimental effects of this federal program on Southern culture are immeasurable. It has greatly contributed to the economic loss to a large swath of sovereign territory in seven states.
Call it the power of eminent domain or the weakness of state and local government leadership or both, but the TVA has held sway to a dominant role in the South for over three-quarters of a century.
Some attribute TVA’s manifold mistakes to the “TVA culture” and point up a few specific examples. But as a former TVA employee now working elsewhere succinctly put it:
“I wonder what painful changes, if any, Mr. Kilgore is referring to. At best, we may see another shuffle of managers but no real accountability for the Kingston event. I have read a lot lately about the ineffective culture within TVA that was deemed a contributing factor to the ash spill. This observation is very correct but the negative culture is much broader than the public is lead to believe. This culture influences TVA's approach to environmental stewardship, safety, and ethical business practices. The entire organization cannot be held accountable for everything.”
And further, “It is necessary to hold individual managers accountable for their failures. A prime example of what is wrong is captured within the TVA's organizational announcement this past spring. As you know, the Widows Creek plant (in Alabama) was issued a NOV (violation) for the repeated and reoccurring duct leaks on the boilers. I believe the civil penalty was 100K and the OIG came down hard on plant management for continued operations and lack of repairs. I cay say with confidence, here at (XYZ) a similar situation would result in the removal and subsequent early retirement of the Plant Manager. What does TVA do with such an event?”
“According to TVA internal documents, this plant manager was promoted to General Manager at Paradise Fossil plant. Based on this, how can TVA ever expect to change the culture if no one is ever held to account?”
This former TVA employee is among numbers who have come forth with their own stories of disregard to safety violations, management incompetence and favoritism. And at least two instances of the use of a hangman’s noose at TVA for intimidation purposes have gone unpunished even with direct evidence.
I’m not suggesting that the TVA should be run like a military organization that does ultimately hold their leaders to account for their actions, no, if TVA would follow industry standards regarding accountability in management practices it would go a long way in rectifying the wrong in TVA.
I have recommended that TVA be dissolved, their assets sold to the highest bidder, and a whole new management culture be placed in responsible and accountable charge of those assets. TVA rates its “Net Completed Plant” assets for 2010 at $24.6 billion. That’s on “paper” of course but in my opinion TVA’s plant assets are greatly overvalued.
What will TVA’s “next moves” be? If they are determined in concert with the present administration, it seems clear that there will be no punishment, only rewards by greatly expanding federalization of the rest of the electricity grid in America.
Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net
http://norsworthyopinion.com