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.