Opinion ID: 175190
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Marquez, Bretzke, Brown, and Barr, and Reed

Text: While Montaño was working under Chatterjee’s supervision in 2002, the Lab’s internal auditing and security functions came under increasing public scrutiny. See id. at 736. As part of its response, the Lab hired Glenn Walp and Steven Doran in early 2002 to head up the Office of Security Inquiries. Id. at 688-89, 732-34. Walp and Doran discovered many issues with the Lab’s internal security; however, both men were fired after less than one year on the job. Id. at 688-89, 732-34, 814-16. Their terminations were detailed in an Albuquerque Journal article published on December 4, 2002. The article also made numerous references to, and contained numerous quotations from Montaño and his former, and soon to be again supervisor, Tommy Hook. Id. at 814-16. In January 2003, as another part of its response to this increased scrutiny, the Lab tasked Hook with creating the aforementioned Self Assessment and Procurement Review Team (“SAPR”). Id. at 655. SAPR was meant to be an “independent program” within the BUS Division, “which initially reported directly to the BUS Division Leader.” Id. at 599. SAPR was responsible for auditing, reviewing, and assessing that division’s finance and procurement operations. Id. By March 2003, Hook had hired Montaño to join SAPR. Montaño’s remaining allegations of retaliation center upon the work he performed, and the lack of work he later received, while working within SAPR. 7 According to Montaño, by April 2003, Marquez and other management retaliated against SAPR by “remov[ing] finance issues from [SAPR] . . . and limit[ing] our work to procurement problems,” and also by “downgrad[ing] Mr. Hook’s reporting relationship . . . .” Id. at 656. By May 2003, “management announced another initiative, the Business Process Improvement Program (‘BPIP’), which they publicly proclaimed as ‘validation’ that all problems were being resolved.” Id. And by July 2003, Montaño claims that “senior Lab management ‘buried’ [SAPR] through a bureaucratic reorganization.” Id. at 657. The bureaucratic reorganization that occurred during this time was Marquez’s decision to restructure the BUS Division by splitting it into two separate divisions: one division, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Division, “manage[d] the Lab[’s] Accounting and Budgetary functional areas;” the other division, the Supply Chain Management (SUP) Division, “manage[d] the Lab[’s] Procurement, Property and Material Management functional areas.” Id. at 474. Many layers of management existed within SUP. John Bretzke was the Division Leader within SUP. Bretzke selected Vernon Brown “to fill the Group Leader position in SUP-1 on an acting basis.” Id. at 436-37. William Barr was the “Project Leader for Procurement Quality Assurance.” Id. at 437. Though the exact hierarchy of these layers is unclear, what is clear is that Barr was the “direct supervisor for SAPR,” and “was responsible for assigning projects to the SAPR Team, usually at the direction of . . . Vernon Brown.” Id. at 489. According to 8 Montaño, this restructuring was detrimental to SAPR’s independence because the entity “went from being a division-level activity, to being a project within a team, within a group, within a division.” Id. at 657. SAPR’s “primary mandate” following this restructuring “was to prepare a FY 2003 self-assessment report for all procurement programs by October 20, 2003.” Id. at 658. Despite this assignment, Montaño claims that management obstructed SAPR’s efforts to complete the report, and ten days before its release management “sent DOE the Lab’s ‘Management Representation Letter,’ which falsely claimed that the BPIP process had made significant improvements in the Lab’s procurement activities, [and] that there were ‘no significant discrepancies’ and no unallowable costs.” Id. at 660. SAPR’s report, in contrast, “gave procurement a failing grade,” and detailed numerous procedural problems. Id. But “[t]he Lab never transmitted the SAPR report to DOE in 2003.” Id. at 661. According to Montaño, “[f]rom November 2003 onward, management gave essentially no work to the SAPR Team.” Id. Management began “stripping the SAPR Team of [its] primary responsibilities,” and in December 2003, Barr removed “the pre-award audit function . . . which left [SAPR] with no meaningful work.” Id. Marquez met with Hook and Montaño in January 2004, and explained that he was taking control of SAPR. Id. at 662. But SAPR still “remained with no work.” Id. For instance, Tony Pace, who had recently replaced Barr, told Hook and Montaño in February 2004 that SAPR “would no longer do self- 9 assessments, which was [SAPR’s] primary mission.” Id. Montaño began looking for work, and he unsuccessfully applied for the “Internal Audit Group Lead position” in January 2004. Id. On March 9, 2004, Montaño “filed a ‘hotline’ complaint with the DOE IG” for retaliation arising from the removal of work and suppression of SAPR reports, and after filing this complaint, Montaño gave the DOE IG “the data that was in the SAPR Team’s October 20, 2003 reports.” Id. at 792. Hook and Montaño “again raised concerns about SAPR’s increasingly limited role” during meetings with Marquez later that month, but to no avail. Id. at 664. According to Marquez, he spoke to the “acting Chief Financial Officer . . . about a position for Montaño and in April 2004, CFO employees . . . offered Montaño the opportunity to join CFO and negotiated with him about the terms of the position for the next four months.” Id. at 476. Montaño’s transfer to the CFO Division was effective August 27, 2004. Before it occurred, Montaño was quoted in a July 25, 2004 Los Angeles Times article that reported on the Lab’s dysfunctional “‘Cowboy Culture.’” Id. at 838-40. The article noted that Montaño had sat idle for approximately eight months and that he “passe[d] time surfing the Web[,] . . . reading newspapers . . . [and] begging for an assignment that might justify his $82,000 salary.” Id. at 840. Montaño was unsatisfied with his transfer. He claims that he was first told he would serve as a “Project Leader for CFO Division recruitment, mentoring, 10 and training,” but he was ultimately reassigned as a “recruiter of accounting and finance staff,” what he calls “a mere lateral move with no salary increase and no leadership responsibilities.” Id. at 666-67. Thus, when the Internal Audit Group Lead position reopened in September of 2004, Montaño once again applied. This time, while his application was pending, he asked Reed to intervene on his behalf “to prevent continuing retaliation.” Id. at 663. Reed, however, did not intervene. Montaño had, however, also previously reached out personally to Reed. Indeed, in both January 2003 and twice in April 2004, Montaño e-mailed Reed in order to voice his concerns about the internal audit function at the Lab and to request a face-to-face meeting with Reed. Id. at 833-37. It appears that Reed never responded to any of Montaño’s communications. In September 2004, Montaño and Hook filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the University. On October 15, 2004, Montaño and Hook testified before the New Mexico legislature. Id. at 668. As the Albuquerque Journal detailed in a series of articles published the following day, Montaño and Hook pressed for a Congressional hearing on whistleblower retaliation at the Lab, and the two detailed the retaliation they allegedly had experienced, including the period of months that Montaño was without work. Id. at 844-46.