Posted on 02/10/2008 7:57:22 AM PST by Etoo
Two whistleblowers claim that a $1.9 million fine leveled against their former bosses - who allegedly underweighted the bulletproof material in combat helmets to save money - is too measly and part of a Pentagon cover-up.
Jeff Kenner and Tamara Elshaug, who worked at the Sioux Manufacturing Corp. in North Dakota, had charged that their company was involved in the "underweaving" of the bulletproof fabric in more than 2 million "P.A.S.G.T." helmets handed out to National Guardsmen, Army Soldiers and Navy Sailors across the country. ... "Any time there's less Kevlar, there's less protection. The American people should know about this. It's just greedy people - it's all about money to them [the company]," Kenner said.
(Excerpt) Read more at military.com ...
What isn’t mentioned is that the firm has minority (Native American owners) affirmative action set asides.
Set asides, or directed buys? The former indicates that a certain portion of a contract must go to *some* woman/minority owned business, but doesn't say which one, or even for what components or subsystems. The latter directs the military or a prime contractor to purchase from a particular source. I know of several such cases, and all of them involve Native American/Tribal businesses. Security locks for example. Jeweled bearings for another (although those aren't used so much any more).
>>What isn’t mentioned is that the
>>firm has minority (Native American owners)
>>affirmative action set asides.
Very interesting tip FReeper. How might we go about documenting and exposing this?
Damn.............Doom on the POS that did such !
Profit takes precedence over soldier’s lives, once again.
They need too lose all rights to bid for goobermint contracts for 5 years when they INTENTIONALLY do such .
This company may have hurt more than just DOD.....
http://www.siouxmanufacturing.com/products.htm
This is the UNICOR helmet. Best I can tell the issue concerns the Kevlar material used to cover the helmet.
Early experience with this kind of helmet served to disqualify ALL non-prison industry manufacturers. UNICOR's workcrew, prisoners to a man and woman, would quite willingly disqualify any helmet for any defect ~ with non-Unicore manufacturers' employees being demonstrably loathe to toss "pefectly good" but flawed helmets.
Only perfect helmets can be allowed to be built and given to the military to protect the troops.
We need a bit more information on this to know if the problem is strictly the covering material, or if it's a safety issue with the helmets themselves, or if some group of non-UNICOR companies managed to pry off a piece of this very sensitive production.
http://www.siouxmanufacturing.com/
Sheez...
Somebody needs to burn in hell over this.
SIOUX MANUFACTURING CORP
Contract Reference
Business Type : Manufacturing MB,SDB,HB,SB
ablative, anodizing, armor, bonded assemblies, camouflage, composites, graphite/epoxy, hubzone, indian incentive, kevlar...
FORT TOTTEN, North Dakota, USA
Minority Owned (at least 51%, Small Disadvantaged, HB= HUB Histriruially Underutilized Business, SB = Small Business
Probably a contract restricted to competitive award among SDBs.
This is a minority firm, and thus exempt from prosecution. Drop the case.
Perhaps neither. It may well have been a competitive contract award.
Unfortunately, a fact of life in federal contracting is that it is virtually impossible to reject a proposal from a minority-owned company, even when that company is clearly incapable of fulfilling the terms of the contract. In other words, a minority-owned contractor is virtually guaranteed to be awarded any contract they bid on.
The government has created a priority system which gives top preference to Aleuts/Eskimos, then all other Native Americans, followed by "regular" minorities (blacks and Hispanics) or women. At the bottom of the ladder are white male-owned businesses.
What actually happens is that minorities form shell companies to take advantage of the preferential treatment, and then subcontract the work to companies that can actually do the work, or supply the product.
The USAF & Navy was plagued by these companies. The work was fine - it was done reputable, big name defense contractors who would have gotten the work anyway - had it not been for the Set-asides.
The finger puppets could not even get the paperwork right. Always a mess all around.
That said, they are some small contractors that did outstanding work. But it what they ‘do’.
I hope this story gets wider distribution.
Hey guys, just trying to maximize profits, we’re good capitalists. I wouldn’t mind reading about combat returnees starting a school to teach ethics among military suppliers.
+1!!! Fine my arse....let them be the test dummy down range.
By law and treaty, Indians aren’t considerer “minorities” like black or hispanics, but “sovereign peoples,” and the program is not “affirmative action” per se (whihc apply only to blacks), but “Indian preference,” again based on federal law and treaties. Just for the record...
No exposure needed...it’s well known fact in BIA and all the other federal agencies that offer contracts for services.
Sioux Manufacturing Corporation (SMC), a tribal corporation wholly-owned by the Spirit Lake Tribe, both of Fort Totten, North Dakota, has agreed to pay $1,935,000 to settle allegations that it knowingly provided noncompliant woven Kevlar cloth that was used in the manufacturing of military combat helmets.Kinnd of removes any doubt about the ownership question.
E-mail Rush, Hannity, and Laura. E-mail your members of Congress.
So the contract was awarded to the low bidder, and they realized that they had really screwed up and they refused to honor the contract. The manufacturer told me they had never been contaced for a quote by this outfit. The government sued them, and they finally delivered after many months, and lost money in the process.
Served them right.
Agreed!!
But I have a solution! But these con men out 50 yrds with these helmets on and test their durability! Say, one in five!
That should learn him a thing or two!
There’s a lot of talk about injured vets suffering from brain trauma. Is there anything stopping family members from suing the company?
A black guy, so the set-aside applied, he did have a clapped ut garbage truck and had been in business for a few years - mostly pickup of overflow from the larger outfits in town.
He wasn’t mine, thank goodness - but I did sit in a couple of sessions where teh contracting officer explained everything to dis guy including the penalties for failure to perform. And we had to tell him to increase his bid, twice, because he was just not asking enough.
He was a nice guy and hard a working a person you would likely find in the business.
3 weeks into the contract, saw his rig on the road heading to the golf course - with one of the truck axles sticking out into the roadway.
In the end, despite cutting him enought slack for the contarcting office to get into trouble, he was dropped for non-performence.
Last I heard he was trying to file bankruptcy to avoid paying the fine, penalties and the cost difference of the next lowest bidder. Nice guy, just no clue about running a real business.
It’s not all bad - we found an outfit that manufacture D band TWTA tubes for a couple of hundred bucs.
We would buy NOS that was outdated/gassy tubes from the Navy, sent it to this outfit and end up with a 1KW (cw) amplifier while saving 6-8 K over new.
Once the Navy figured out what we were doing - they cut us off and hired the guy for themselves.... LOL. Saved Sam a bundle no matter.
This may have been a legit partnership allowing the Tribe to get business and training for its members - with capital and experts from the larger vendor.
I have seen these work here in Alaska and everyone wins - after the ‘smaller/minority/female/whatever partner grows enough, they are thier own (no set asides) and must bid straight up against all comers.
NANA Corp comes to mind as a success.
Better yet.......every veteran with a head injury should file suit..........shoot the manufacturer they jut bleed. Hit em in the pocket book they DIE !!
The PASGT helmet, including the flawed ones made by this company, still has an outstanding record of protecting the troops. The limiting factor to life saving is not the ballistic properties of the helmet, but the suspension system, which has to dissipate the blunt force trauma.
The PASGT was designed to stop a 9mm handgun round. It can do that, but it deforms four inches in the process. That's a lot of blunt trauma, and the original 1950's-style suspension system could not handle it, so the helmet was never promoted as "bullet proof". Over the last four years, a system of pads, like used in racing and football helmets, were developed for the new Advanced Combat Helmet. It will safely stop a 9mm round, leaving the wearer with a headache, and not a life-threatening blunt force trauma.
The past four years have been spent getting a pad system out to the troops to replace the old suspension system used in the PASGT. That is a much bigger story of government incompetence and carelessness than the missing Kevlar in this case. This manufacturer is just a thief. The real malfeasance rests with DoD and the individual services in delaying the deployment of these lifesaving pads, and the use of substandard ones.
The short-changed Kevlar needs to be put in perspective. If you want to get really pissed, visit Operation Helmet
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