David Axe of Defense Tech has a story about 12-year Lockheed Martin veteran engineer Mike DeKort, who made waves last month when he posted a video on YouTube alleging serious contractor failures on a Coast Guard patrol boat project. His beef with Lockheed is broader, however, and extends into a general indictment of its leadership and ethics standards. DeKort’s goal? A Congressional investigation of Lockheed Martin.

Axe’s link-filled article “Whistleblower Picks Up Steam” is worth a look. In it, he notes that:

“Lockheed hasn’t been shy about all this DeKort stuff. In fact, it was [Lockheed spokesman Tony] Scully who alerted me to the second video. But it has always been the company’s position that that DeKort’s core complaint—that the Coast Guard patrol boats are unsafe—is baseless. Scully says that perhaps all the media attention has granted DeKort more legitimacy than his allegations warrant.”

Perhaps. Perhaps not. In time, we shall see.

UPDATE: The lid blew off of the Deepwater project in December, 2006.