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.........many years ago a friend wanted me to back him on a construction contract with the City of Austin. Basically, it was a contract to rebuild and remodel several 40 year old building’s around town which included substantial sitework on each.

I trusted this guy (my friend) and didn’t pay much attention and very soon the deal blew up. Why? Because of what is called “set asides”. This is where government makes people (white contractors) use certain classes of people such as you have to have so many blacks and Hispanics and women and so on.

Then I got involved and quickly determined that the spark that blew the deal up was a black contractor my friend gave the sitework sub contract too. Seems he would not man the job and would not tell us when he would. Since he was the sitework contractor, the project was dead stop. So, I fired him.

A “meeting” was called and I was the ONLY white guy in the room among about a dozen folks. The black guy said “I ain’t gonna sit here and listen to this old red faced white guy”. This attitude was undoubtedly because I had fired him off the job and was moving on without him. We had recordings and ample documentation of his refusal to man the job.

Long story short a lawsuit was sparked and very soon we settled with us being paid in full including “lost profit” and released from our bond and attorney fees. Why? Our lawyers convinced City lawyers that the pivotal issue was WHO? was the General Contractor?.............”US” or “them”. Meaning specifically that if you take away the right to hire and fire then “you” (the City) were really the General Contractor and the contract was a sham.

So, I have no doubt that the contract between this rocket company and the government had similar issues..........thus the friggin rocket blew up like our construction project!