After time spent working in three agency offices, the Fayetteville coordinator considered the term "workarounds" to be a fundamental concept for working effectively in North Carolina's environmental agency.
Like many large organizations, the state environmental agency was structured as a 1970s, old-style bureaucracy. And much like in Louisiana, many if not most of the men in state government in North Carolina, like the Fayetteville coordinator, tended to be rather conservative and reluctant to change. This seemed to be especially true for the agency bosses located in the seven field offices scattered around the state. A very interesting but challenging aspect of the job were the significant differences between the agency's Raleigh headquarters offices and the field offices. The resulting tensions and turf battles were quite striking. However, the good news was there always seemed to be workarounds to sidestep the bureaucratic barriers and turf wars.
The key was to get to know as many people as possible and to familiarize yourself with each individual's area of work and specific expertise. Essentially, listen carefully and ask questions. Also, it certainly helped to keep track of the scores and top stories for Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) football and basketball.
Importantly, the Fayetteville coordinator genuinely liked nearly all of the people he interacted with in the agency.
Over time, he had started referring to the Division of Air Quality permits office in Raleigh as the EIB Permits Network. Working in the various offices, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, and Fayetteville, allowed him to learn that the EIB Network point-of-view was common among the middle-aged men working in the agency, as well as in the communities throughout North Carolina. This was important information. It helped in understanding the feelings and perspective of the people he interacted with on a daily basis. Prior to working at North Carolina's environmental agency, he was not aware of the prevalence of this viewpoint since he usually only listened to music stations on FM radio while driving in his car.
Of course, working for an environmental agency in North Carolina, the Fayetteville coordinator and his co-workers could easily be mocked and dismissed by some as "environmental wackos" or "tree huggers." While he loved tree climbing as a young boy, and enjoyed color changes in autumn, he did not view himself as a wacko or tree hugger.
Tom had faced some stereotyping challenges during his years working in Louisiana in the 1980s, prior to the popularity of the EIB Network in the 1990s and 2000s. While living and working in the midwest, he had always described his career as "working in environmental science and engineering." He eventually learned that in Louisiana being called an "environmentalist" was essentially a slur. He was once called as an expert witness for an adjudicatory hearing involving a hazardous chemical spill in Baton Rouge. The first question the defense attorney asked him was, "are you an environmentalist?" he responded, "No." The defense attorney then agreed to accept him as an expert witness on hazardous chemical spills and releases.
The Fayetteville coordinator had three primary reasons for wanting to work in the environmental agency's Fayetteville office after having worked in both the Raleigh headquarters office and the agency's Winston-Salem field office. The Fayetteville region had multiple complex chemical manufacturing plants, which he was very interested in due to his chemistry background and his many years working in Baton Rouge and Ann Arbor. The chemical manufacturing sites in the Fayetteville region included DuPont, Monsanto, DuPont-Teijin, DAK Resins, and Borden Chemical.
Also, the Fayetteville job was a promotion to an E2 environmental engineering "coordinator" position. In addition to carrying out the usual facility inspections or permitting activities, the coordinator was expected to make sure the Fayetteville office and the Raleigh central office were working together in a consistent, effective, and positive manner. It was an excellent position for getting to know and work with other agency employees throughout the state, as well as becoming familiar with the manufacturing facilities and environmental challenges in other regions of North Carolina. Importantly, the E2 coordinator position included an increase in pay.
Thirdly, Fayetteville certainly appeared to be one of the most modern offices in the division. The Fayetteville air quality supervisor, Steven Vozzo, was forward-thinking and trained as a scientist rather than as an engineer. Previously, the Fayetteville office was headed up by Ken Smack. Ken had worked for many years as an engineer in the chemical industry prior to the agency. After Ken retired as head of the agency's Fayetteville office, Steven Vozzo became the air quality supervisor and quickly reworked the office's outdated operations. In Fayetteville, the coordinator got to work on everything, including inspections, permits, emissions reports, as well as responding to and investigating complaints, with interesting weekly meetings to discuss each employee's work activities and areas of expertise. The staff was fully informed on all projects and activities. There was a refreshing emphasis on stepping away from the paperwork and getting out in the field to look closely at the facilities and ask questions, lots of questions. There was no such thing as asking too many questions. Steven had also tried to get the Air, Water, and Waste groups in the Fayetteville Systel building to work closely and share more information. Unfortunately, on that particular effort he seemed to be encountering resistance.
Prior to the coordinator position in Fayetteville, his several years working in the agency's Winston-Salem office gave him a close look at the typical agency field office. It was a mostly dedicated and likable team in Winston-Salem. However, the office was managed as an old school, military-like operation with tight compartments and silos, and an emphasis on seniority and hierarchy. Despite having a "science-based mission," it appeared that most field offices had historically placed scientists at the bottom of the hierarchy and engineers at the top. There seemed to be little chance of reform and modernization in Winston-Salem until the long-time boss, an engineer and North Carolina State College of Engineering graduate, decided to retire. Like many of his peers, he was old school, entrenched, and reluctant to change.
Similarly, in many of the agency air quality offices the employees spent years working in narrow, tight compartments and silos. Jack had candid conversations with other employees about this outdated system. However, the entrenched, licensed engineers who seemed to have the positions of power did not seem receptive to change. Historically, they were the top dogs in the organization. The people with the power, most of whom were graduates of the North Carolina State College of Engineering in Raleigh, had workplace seniority. Perhaps not surprisingly, they seemed to believe they knew what was best for everyone else. And, after all, "it has always been done this way."
Not surprisingly, some North Carolina legislators who been successful with their own private business pursuits wanted state government bosses in North Carolina to run their public agency offices "like a private business." Perhaps understandably, some of the state government bosses in the seven agency field offices were subscribers to this curious philosophy of public governance, which suggested that agency field bosses deserved unchecked power over subordinate public employees. A field boss had full control of the narrative. What could go wrong? During his years working in Louisiana as a public employee, the Fayetteville coordinator had never encountered anyone working in the chemical or petroleum industry who suggested that a government boss should run a public agency office like it was a private business. In Lousiana, it would have been viewed as an invitation for corruption and self-serving decision-making. Oddly, there seemed to be a different mindset in North Carolina.
His several years working in the agency's headquarters office gave him some insight to the agency's separation between "conducting inspections" versus "writing permits." Common sense would seem to suggest they should go hand-in-hand, perhaps a bit analogous to the field of mathematics where experience at addition/subtraction should go hand-in-hand with experience in multiplication/division.
However, the specialization and separation of responsibilities in the agency reflected the older technology. In the early 1990s, air permits were printed out on two large word processing machines located in downtown Raleigh. A team of "permit engineers" handed off templates with draft versions, changes, and edits to the administrative assistants operating the two large word processors on the 7th floor of the fortress-like Archdale building located across the street from Peace College in Raleigh. As a result, it made some sense that a typical agency staffer was either a "permit writer" in Raleigh or a "facility inspector" in one of the seven field offices. After changes in technology resulted in the same hardware and software available on everyone's desk, allowing creation, peer review, and signature approval of any documents, it appeared that significant improvements could be made to the existing agency system. Steven Vozzo immediately modernized the Fayetteville office, but many other entrenched agency bosses wanted to maintain the status quo.
When the Fayetteville coordinator first began working in Raleigh in 1993, the agency's Division of Air Quality permits office led by Director Alan Klimek and Laura Butler had a respectful and professional office culture. They were both bright, talented, and attentive listeners. But it did not stay that way. Eventually, the culture in the agency's Division of Air Quality changed significantly. Importantly, Alan Klimek moved laterally from Director of Air Quality to become Director of Water Quality. And Keith Overcash moved up to become the new Director of Air Quality. Maybe it looked good on paper. It certainly seemed like it should have been an opportunity for better collaboration between the Air and Water silos. In any event, from the perspective of the Fayetteville coordinator the unraveling of decency, respect, and professionalism in key parts of the North Carolina Division of Air Quality reinforced the importance of workarounds and getting to know everyone.
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