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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016
Salvage Chief: Hundreds have crewed the vessel
Continued from Page 1A
retrieving a sunken wave energy
buoy near Coos Bay in the late
2000s. Most notable among the
Salvage Chief’s exploits was the
Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker it
reÀoated in Alaska’s Prince Wil-
liam Sound and towed to San
Diego.
Hundreds of people have
crewed the vessel, Floyd said, not
including the welders, divers and
other salvage professionals the ves-
sel took along on jobs. The only
fatality in the vessel’s entire history
was Floyd’s father, who died of a
heart attack.
Floyd said the Salvage Chief
Foundation recently received the
OK from Englund Marine & Indus-
trial Supply to develop an exhibit on
the vessel at the company’s former
location at the foot of 15th Street on
the Astoria Riverwalk. The group
also hopes to place sections of the
hull it took from the Exxon Valdez
to place along the waterfront.
Lackey said the vessel often
doesn’t get its due for the impact
it had on the maritime industry
and the environmental disasters it
helped the region avoid. He gave
one example of when the Salvage
Chief had to tow two barges — one
¿lled with munitions and another
with benzine — off the sand near
the Long Beach Peninsula in Wash-
ington state, potentially averting a
disaster for local seafood. “There
are a lot of ships we’ve saved,” he
said.
People take a tour
of one of the engine
rooms of the
Salvage Chief.
Joshua Bessex
The Daily Astorian
Oracle: After March 10, public has chance to see full documents
Continued from Page 1A
Company has
blamed state
Oracle repeatedly has blamed
the failure of the Cover Oregon
website project on state misman-
agement and politics. It has found
plenty of backing in thousands of
documents already released pub-
licly by the state of Oregon.
The state, meanwhile, has
argued that Oracle knew its work
was faulty and kept vital infor-
mation from the state. What’s
more, the state says it now has
internal documents that support
that claim. But, because Oracle
has designated the documents as
con¿dential, the state has been
unable to share publicly what it
calls proof of its claims.
Last month the Oregon Attor-
ney *eneral’s Of¿ce submitted a
24-page brief in Marion County
Circuit Court arguing that Oracle
was wrongly classifying its inter-
nal documents as con¿dential.
The brief said several examples
of Oracle’s internal correspon-
dence are not trade secrets and
should be disclosed. But, because
the documents remain under seal,
the passages are redacted — cov-
ered with a black bar.
Last week, however, the
Pamplin Media Group was able
to review a version of the brief
without the redactions. The pas-
sages include summaries (and
a few selected quotes) of pri-
vate exchanges between Oracle
employees. They reveal:
• Some of Oracle’s own
employees in reports and
emails dissed the company’s
work for Oregon, according to
the brief. One company assess-
ment in November 2013 found
its software development
“didn’t pass the ‘laugh test.’”
• In a Nov. 22, 2013, inter-
nal email that appears to contain
two typos, one Oracle developer
wrote that an “army” of pro-
grammers for the company was
“rapoing the state f Oregon on
something that will never work
well,” according to the brief.
• Yet another passage, from a
March 16, 2012, internal email,
suggests a company executive
may have opposed the state’s
plan to hire a prime contractor to
oversee Oracle’s work out of a
desire to preserve the company’s
lucrative position as Cover Ore-
gon’s prime contractor. Oracle
now, in contrast, says this lack
of oversight is at the heart of the
project’s problems.
• Concerns about the project
prompted Oracle’s founder, bil-
lionaire Larry Ellison, to request
daily progress reports in a Nov.
16, 2013, email.
In a statement in January,
Oracle said the state’s motion
includes “misleading state-
ments.” Asked Monday about
the excerpts, Oracle issued a
comment, attributed to spokes-
woman Deborah Hellinger,
which characterizes the state’s
motion as “a handful of cherry
picked documents out of more
than 2 million documents in this
case. There are thousands of
documents that tell the true story
and that clearly establish that
the State was responsible for the
outcome of Cover Oregon.”
Secrecy questioned
According to the state’s
motion, the passages above and
other documents that are labeled
secret “belie Oracle’s public
relations story, undermine its lit-
igation defenses, and strongly
support plaintiffs’ claims.”
Oracle defended its use of
the con¿dentiality designation,
saying some “involve personal
information about individuals.
Still others include information
about Oracle’s other customers
and trade secrets.”
But the state contends that
Executive opposed
Oracle has misused the con¿-
oversight
dentiality order to prevent the
Perhaps the most interest-
state from “providing the Ore- ing excerpt of Oracle correspon-
gon Legislature, Congress, fed- dence concerns the state’s initial
eral authorities, and Oregon citi- plan to bring in the equivalent of
zens with a complete history” of an IT general contractor, called
the project.
a systems integrator, to oversee
Oracle also sealed docu- Oracle and manage the project.
ments that already are public,
The failure to hire an integra-
as well as innocuous emails tor was, in Oracle’s more recent
such as ones accepting a meet- portrayals, an incredibly dumb
ing, booking a conference move.
room, and forwarding a state
“Oracle has never worked
email with-
on a project of
out comment,
this size and
‘Oregon
according to
complexity
the
state’s
a sys-
screwed its without
tems integra-
motion.
Tung Yin, a population on tor in place,”
Lewis & Clark
according to
this project.’ a PowerPoint
Law School
professor, says
presentation
Todd Williams
the
state’s
Oracle shared
a management consultant
motion may
with members
well be a hard-
of Congress.
ball attempt to extract a gener-
Not ¿lling that position cre-
ous settlement. Citing emails ated a huge management void
such as the one saying Ora- and “created massive problems”
cle programmers were “rapo- for the Oregon project, the Ora-
ing” Oregon may be intended cle PowerPoint continued.
to show the company how this
According to the state’s
would look in court.
motion, however, an Oracle
Since the “o” and “I” are executive in March 2012 rec-
adjacent on keyboards, Yin ommended in an internal email
says “rapoing” appears to be a that the company discuss how
typo for “raping.”
to stop the state from hiring an
“The worst possible read- integrator, apparently because it
ing of that email would be, would diminish Oracle’s role in
I think, that there were peo- the project.
ple who knew (the website)
If the state hired an integra-
would never work, but they tor, it “could displace or reduce
were still selling it to Oregon our role signi¿cantly,” wrote the
and taking the money,” Yin Oracle executive, according to
says.
the version of the state’s brief
Even if that isn’t what the
email’s author meant, the quote
could force Oracle to play
defense in court, Yin adds. The
art of settlement negotiations
“is always about making your
case look as strong as possible
and your opponents’ case as
weak as possible.”
Veterans: Hoehn has personally
found more than 1,200 photos
since the project started
Continued from Page 1A
The photos are being
compiled on the Wall of
Faces online memorial and
will be featured in an Edu-
cation Center planned adja-
cent to the, memorial.
Janna Hoehn, a Hawaii-
based volunteer with the
project, said this week
she completed the Clatsop
County photo search after
working on the effort for
nearly two years.
“Found them all for
Clatsop County,” Hoehn
said. “Sometimes it takes
forever it seems.”
Hoehn has personally
found more than 1,200 pho-
tos since the project started
six years ago. She began in
Hawaii, then her hometown
in California, followed by
Washington state, Idaho
and Oregon.
She only has 13 photos
left to find in Oregon.
Searching for photos
can be difficult, Hoehn
said, since military records
and local memorials don’t
always match.
In addition, the names
are of veterans who
enlisted in a county and
may not have grown up in
the area. Clatsop County is
the “home of record” des-
ignation for the 12 local
veterans.
Across the Columbia
River in Pacific County,
Washington, two Vietnam
casualties are listed with
photos.
See the online memo-
rial at www.vvmf.org/
Wall-of-Faces.
13 MORE TO GO IN OREGON
Volunteers only need 13 more
photos of veterans in Oregon to
match them with the names on
the Vietnam Memorial Wall in
Washington, D.C.
Clackamas County:
• David L. Cooper, 1945-1967
Curry County:
• Walter G. Anderson, 1924-
1968
Douglas County:
• Santford B. Kempke
Lane County:
• Arthur Haddock, 1926-1968
Linn County:
• George E. Gilliland, 1936-
1972
• John L. Holmes, 1943-1968
Washington/Multnomah
Counties:
• Michael R. Bartell, 1946-1968
• Richard D. Benzel, 1932-1962
• Donald W. Lovett, 1945-1965
• Rex D. Morelock Jr., 1950-
1969
• George W. Watson, 1931-1963
Wasco County:
• Charles W. Bauman, 1936-
1966
To send a photograph or
information to Hoehn, email her
at neverforgotten2014@gmail.
com.
AREA VETERANS KILLED IN VIETNAM
The 12 Clatsop County veterans who were killed in the Vietnam
War:
• Ronald Stanley Anderson, 21, of Astoria, U.S. Air Force, died March
23, 1972.
• Alan Lynne Barnett, 17, of Astoria, U.S. Army, died November 4,
1965.
• Patrick A. Cadwallader, 21, of Astoria, U.S. Army, died December
20, 1969.
• Francis Duncan Campbell, 35, of Gearhart, U.S. Navy, died January
16, 1969.
• Carl John Green Jr., 21, of Seaside, U.S. Army, died April 24, 1969.
• Melvin Derward Hebert Jr., 20, of Seaside, U.S. Army, died October
4, 1968.
• Richard Jerome Holman, 21, of Astoria, U.S. Army, died June 5,
1969.
• Dan Thomas Klindt, 19, of Astoria, U.S. Army, died December 27,
1969.
• Daniel Edward Lloyd, 20, of Astoria, U.S. Marine Corps, died July
28, 1968.
• Kenneth Duane Phares, 19, of Astoria, U.S. Marine Corps, died May
18, 1967.
• Terry Allen Rippy, 23, of Hammond, U.S. Army, died April 22, 1966.
• Gordon Lee Zimmerle, 21, of Seaside, U.S. Army, died March 23,
1970.
Two Pacific County, Washington veterans were killed in the
Vietnam War:
• James W. Emerson, 22, of South Bend, U.S. Army, died August 25,
1966.
• Thierry Timothy G. Maxim, 19, Ocean Park, U.S. Army, died Sep-
tember 21, 1970.
reviewed by Pamplin Media
Group. “It isn’t clear what we
can do about this other than pray
that they keep deferring the SI
(systems integrator) selection.
But since hope is not a strat-
egy, this topic deserves some
discussion.”
The email substantiates one
of the most explosive claims in
the state’s lawsuit against the
company, that a former Oracle
employee said the ¿rm engaged in
a secret effort to dissuade the state
from hiring an integrator. Oracle
told Oregon it would ¿ll the role
instead, the state lawsuit claims.
Oracle’s legal ¿lings stop
short of mocking the state’s
decision to go without an inte-
grator. But they do suggest it
made failure inevitable. As the
company argued in its federal
lawsuit, “That decision was akin
to an individual with no con-
struction experience undertak-
ing to manage the processes of
designing and building a mas-
sive multi-use downtown sky-
scraper without an architect or
general contractor.”
Mixed responsibility
The public could get a
chance to see the full documents
after March 10. That’s when a
Marion County Circuit Court
judge will consider whether to
unseal them.
IT experts who’ve followed
the project say both sides share
responsibility. Todd Williams,
a management consultant and
author of a book on problem
projects, focuses blame on the
state side. The head of eCam-
eron, a Camas, Washington,
project management consult-
ing ¿rm, he knows people who
worked on the project and gives
trainings in which his audience
role-plays how to oversee it.
The excerpts cited by the
state raise questions for Wil-
liams, but they don’t change his
view that the state bears most
of the responsibility for Cover
Oregon’s failure. He’s reviewed
numerous documents from the
project, as well as news reports
showing the state used poor con-
tracting, poor management, and
ignored the advice of its own
employees and consultants.
“I do believe Oregon is
much more at fault,” Williams
says. “Oregon screwed its pop-
ulation on this project.”
That said, he adds, the doc-
uments indicate that Oracle was
“not a good citizen” on the proj-
ect, either.
“Oracle should have seen
many areas where Oregon was
setting the project up for failure.
As good partners in the project,
they should have been advis-
ing the state to go in a less-risky
direction,” he says.
“As it was, Oracle had a very
low-risk contract with no obliga-
tion to take on this role. Hence,
they seemed to be more interested
in their short-term pro¿t rather
than the long-term relationship
and viability of the product.”
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.