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Joseph P.
Carson is a licensed professional engineer (P.E.) and nuclear safety
engineer at DOE. He is a decorated veteran who served as an officer in the
nuclear navy for six years and later worked at several commercial nuclear
power plants. He joined the Department of Energy (DOE) as a workplace and
nuclear safety engineer in 1990. DOE is unique in Federal Government and
nuclear industry in being self-regulating in worker and nuclear safety. As
a P.E. and safety professional, Carson has a positive legal and ethical
duty to “blow the whistle,” when necessary, to protect worker and public
health and safety in DOE facilities.
Carson has been voicing concerns about safety and making allegations of
whistleblower reprisal and other unlawful prohibited personnel practices
(PPP’s) in DOE since 1992. In his opinion, the years of litigation reduces
to the following: “Carson considers himself a member of the engineering
profession employed by DOE; DOE considers him an employee it calls an
engineer; the engineering profession has little, if any, cohesiveness to
its code of ethics when offended by an employer of an engineer.”
Carson has “prevailed” in numerous whistleblower-related decisions of the
U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). He has been disappointed to
find that “prevailing” as a whistleblower does not mean, in DOE at least,
that the underlying health and safety issues are objectively considered.
His frank counsel to concerned safety professionals in DOE is to “look the
other way if you can live with yourself.” Carson cannot “live with
himself” having to give such dismal counsel to other members of his
profession, so he keeps trudging on, hoping to contribute to positive
changes in DOE, his profession of engineering, other safety professions,
and the federal civil service.
DOE is not a donut shop. It is the custodian of America’s nuclear
stockpile and nuclear weapons secrets. DOE’s top overseer for its nuclear
weapon material safeguards and security programs authorized, in writing, a
personnel action against Carson later to be found unlawful reprisal.
Consistent with DOE’s inverse reward system, he has been promoted several
times since.
Consistent with Carson’s allegations of unsafe and unhealthy conditions in
DOE, Congress passed a law in 2000, the Energy Employee Occupational
Illness Compensation Plan Act (EEOICPA), to provide a measure of
compensation and health care to thousands of diseased, disabled, or
prematurely deceased DOE workers or their survivors. President Clinton, in
signing this legislation, apologized to these workers for their being put
in harms’ way in DOE facilities, without their knowledge or adequate
protection. About 70,000 claims have been filed under the EEOICPA and
thousands of claims have been paid.
Carson is a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE
http://www.nspe.org ),
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME
http://www.asme.org ),
and the American Nucear Society (ANS
http://www.ans.org ). He
also belongs to the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS http://www.aaas.org).
Carson believes his profession’s lack of cohesiveness to its code of
ethics contributed to the DOE sick worker disaster. He thinks it was an
important factor in other engineering-related mishaps and disasters such
as the loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle, the August 2003 electrical
blackout, and the rapid collapse of the World Trade Centers on 9/11, among
others. Major engineering professional societies have yet to “go on
record” that DOE offended the engineering profession and the public health
and safety by its unlawful reprisal against him. While Carson does not
take this personally (they have rarely, if ever, done so in other cases),
he does think this lack of cohesiveness is an important (even if unstated)
contributing factor to the DOE sick worker disaster and other
engineering-related mishaps and disasters.
He welcomes comments on what the engineering profession ought to do when
1) an engineer alleges employment reprisal for adhering to the
profession’s code of ethics, 2) an engineer is legally vindicated in those
allegations, and/or 3) engineers are implicated in taking unlawful
reprisal against another engineer for his adhering to the profession’s
code of ethics.
At end of it, Joe Carson and his family have suffered and sacrificed to
defend his secular profession of engineering’s code of ethics in his
secular employment for faith-based reasons. As a Christian, he believes
that "suffering for righteousness' sake" is not necessarily to be shunned.
Additionally, he believes that a Christian who is privileged to be a
member of a recognized profession should, as a necessary outworking of
their faith, model and advocate, individually and collectively, the
trustworthy - ethical, competent, and accountable - practice of that
profession. (While members of other faith traditions might agree with this
reasoning, Carson does not wish to speak for them.)
As one result of this ordeal, he co-founded and now heads the Affiliation
for Christian Engineers (ACE)
http://www.christianengineer.net, an international,
interdenominational, virtual, low-cost, high-value added, auxiliary,
professional society for Christian Engineers. It is for Christian
engineers who want to live out their faith by uplifting their profession
and the public health, safety, and welfare it exists to serve.
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Joseph P. Carson
10953 Twin Harbour Drive
Knoxville, TN 37934
865-300-5831
jpcarson@tds.net
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