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Thunderbird Professor Michael Moffett, Ph.D., stands on a hilltop overlooking the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington state and marvels at the scale of the project. The site, built in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project, covers an isolated valley half the size of Rhode Island.
“You can see the skeletons of eight nuclear reactors,” Moffett says.
During the peak of the Cold War, the top-secret facility produced two-thirds of U.S. plutonium for nuclear weapons. Now the focus at the site has shifted to cleanup and reclamation of radioactive soil, water and building materials left behind after 40 years of production.
The U.S. Department of Energy started a 30-year cleanup process in 1988 and awarded the site management contract to Texas-based Fluor Corporation in 1996. The global company, ranked No. 114 on the Fortune 500, specializes in developing and completing complex projects involving engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance and project management.
“Our sweet spot involves delivering large, complex, logistically challenging projects for our clients around the globe,” says Glenn Gilkey, Fluor’s Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Administration. “The harder the project, the more it plays into our sweet spot.”
So Fluor welcomed the challenge at Hanford, despite inheriting a poor workplace safety record and a staff leery of new management.
“When Fluor arrived to take over the reclamation and cleanup process, they ran into an organizational culture that was extremely difficult,” says Moffett, who visited the site Feb. 25-28, 2009, with Thunderbird Professor Andrew Inkpen, Ph.D., to study Fluor’s change management.
Moffett says Fluor emphasizes workplace safety everywhere it goes, but the company initially met resistance at Hanford from a highly unionized workforce that included many second- and third-generation employees. After some early setbacks, Fluor started listening more closely to union leaders and engaging them in workplace reforms.
Injuries dropped dramatically during the next decade, and Fluor earned the prestigious Robert W. Campbell Award for safety, health and environmental management in 2008.
“They were the right organization for this challenge,” Moffett says.
Fluor’s resume includes similar success stories all over the world. Company projects include a refinery and petrochemical complex in Russia, an offshore gas production platform near Trinidad and Tobago, the world’s largest wind farm in the North Sea, a glass substrate plant in Taiwan, a high-speed rail line in the Netherlands, a polysilicon facility in China, a power plant in Iraq, and bridges, highways, refineries, mines, pipelines and power plants in all corners of the globe.
Building relationships
Management of these complex projects requires Fluor to build close relationships with diverse groups of customers, employees and partners all over the world. This ability to get along with others has helped Fluor thrive as a charter member of the Thunderbird International Consortia.
“That is what Fluor does,” Moffett says. “They interact, manage, coordinate and partner with other companies. That same chemistry is part of the TIC process.”
Gilkey, a 25-year Fluor veteran who graduated from the Consortia in 1999, says the program stretches participants’ minds as they interact with high-potential managers from other companies, industries and regions.
“It really stretches their global thinking,” Gilkey says. “It stretches their ability to look at solutions to problems from different perspectives, and also to value the perspectives of others who are coming from a totally different place than themselves.”
Gilkey says the Consortia also provide a relaxed environment where participants can test ideas without worrying about how they might sound.
“We don’t send a lot of people each time,” Gilkey says. “So they don’t have to worry about embarrassing themselves in front of one of their Fluor colleagues.”
Moffett says he and other professors who teach in the Consortia take steps to foster a relaxed atmosphere. “There’s a much freer exchange of ideas than in other settings,” he says. “We have a lot of fun.”
But participants also work hard during their two weeks on campus. Thunderbird Corporate Learning Senior Director Pauline Gibson, who oversees the Consortia, says participants appreciate the investment their companies make in their education and come to Thunderbird eager to learn.
“The participants enjoy each other while they learn,” Gibson says. “They are serious about learning.”
Patty Nemeth, a human resources director at Fluor who oversees executive education, says classroom discussions routinely spill over into evening meals and even late-night gatherings at the campus Pub.
“The learning does not stop in the classroom,” she says. “It really spans the entire two weeks we are in the program.”
Building loyalty
For Fluor managers, being picked for the Consortia signals a vote of confidence from senior executives. Currently, the company has more than 40,000 employees, and only about 220 have participated in the Consortia since 1993.
“The employee feels pride that he or she has been selected to go to Thunderbird,” Gilkey says. “There’s a lot of anticipation about being selected.”
Gilkey says those who attend end up making big contributions for the company.
“The list of participants reads like the who’s who of Fluor,” he says. “A high percentage of these people are at the VP or senior leadership level within the corporation.”
High-potential managers appreciate the investment in their careers, which helps boost retention.
“What I’ve seen are managers and leaders who are tremendously loyal to the company,” says Jennifer Large, Fluor’s Executive Director of Talent Development.
She says the loyalty also extends to Thunderbird. “Fluor was one of the original members of the TIC,” says Large, who earned an executive management certificate from Thunderbird in an open enrollment program. “So there’s a loyalty factor there as well.”
Large says Consortia participants appreciate Thunderbird’s diverse faculty and the relevant case studies they bring to the classroom. She says one graduate from the 2009 Consortia already has found success in Russia using lessons learned from a Thunderbird case study.
“The case studies are timeless,” she says. “I think that’s one of the reasons we continue to send folks.”
Nemeth says Consortia participants also appreciate the lessons on global leadership.
“Many of the people we send are very technical individuals,” she says. “What they pick up at Thunderbird are leadership skills – leading a group, leading a project. Those are things they may not have learned in their undergraduate programs.”
She says success at the Hanford nuclear reservation and other sites depends on the quality of Fluor leaders more than strategy, technology or anything else.
“At the end of the day, we bet on people,” Nemeth says. “Our employees are our most important asset. That is why TIC fits our company to a tee.”
Enroll today
The next Thunderbird International Consortia program will be April 18-29, 2010, in Glendale, Arizona. For more information, contact Thunderbird Senior Director Pauline Gibson at pauline.gibson@thunderbird.edu or call 800-457-6980 within the United States or 602-978-7918 internationally.
Thunderbird Case Series
Two case studies on Fluor Hanford by Thunderbird professors Andrew Inkpen and Michael Moffett are available for purchase online.
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