Sunday, March 31, 2013

A New Jersey Engineering Firm Prosecuted for Conspiracy & Money Laundering Goes Belly-Up

Why would this story relate to the Roofing Scam?

The tactics used by the Engineering Firm have been seen in similar scams targeting school funds and other public facilities construction contracts.

What happened?

Birdsall was "indicted for conspiring over six years to funnel money through employees to the same elected officials awarding them millions of dollars in public contracts."

The story is here:

Indicted N.J. engineering firm Birdsall Services Group files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

The story is how they caught for doing what is here:

Secret recording led to criminal case against N.J. engineering firm Birdsall Services Group

It's another lesson in how kickbacks are given for contracts....

____________________

And from the Comments Section to the first story above is a list of the politicians receiving "contributions" from Birdsall - note the preponderence of Democrats - same thing we see in California recently with the arrests in the San Diego area of 15 School Superintendents, School Board Members, Construction Management Company Personnel, a BOND Financier! and an architect - and we know it's a lot worse across California...:

"

I'd like to see a list of the top recipients of those Birdsall contributions!

Mary Anne Connolly D
DNC D
Frank Pollone D
Timothy cardon D
Bill Pascrell D
James Treffinger R
John Edwards D
Jn Corzine D
Robert Menendez D
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee D
America Coming Together PAC D
Evan Bayh D
Barak Obama D
William Gormley R
Rush Holt D
Steve Rothman D
Donald Young R
Robert Torricelli D
John Kerry D
NJ Democrat State Committee D
New Millennium PAC D

Should I continue?"

Dedication

This Blog is Dedicated to the memory of a colleague, Joan Fitzgerald, an extremely well-trained architect that this blogger worked with at the University of California, San Francisco. She was the Associate Architect, and was forced to retire early after fighting with bosses over the illegally sole-sourced construction products specifications used in bidding and contracting.

Daily I would see our boss, much younger than her, trying to ride her out telling her how bad she was. Quite the opposite, she like this blogger had been trained at one of the three best architecture schools in the nation. We recognized each other's work.

But the boss, trained at one of the worst (at least known for it in Atlanta, where this blogger was trained), refused to back off the illegal specifications.

And Joanie as we called her retired early, forced out. She was visibly emotionally destroyed, badly shaken, by the bosses involved in the dastardly ill use of her. And with that kind of emotional destruction comes a physical ill, often, and she got it. Cancer. She fought it off, then it came back to her liver.

Joanie called me from her home in Mill Valley, Marin County, Ca. one Saturday evening in July, 1996....sobbing great gulps, talking about her diagnosis. And all she could keep saying?

"Janet, promise me, find out how UC keeps getting away with all those illegal contracts, over and over, how do they do it?"

She's got six weeks to live, and can only talk between great gulps and sobs for an hour and a half about what hastened her death - the illegal contracts she fought them over.

I promised her I would. Every time she asked - and that was a lot.

The next day, neighbors "heard a loud sound" and came running. Joanie was dead.

I did what she asked, and the result was uncovering a massive scam being used politically for agendas.

That was 22 years ago. We see the fruit of inaction today in this country, and it's not good. No justice for those who are involved, and injustice for those who do the right thing.

My God. Don't think He isn't watching. His patience has a limit.

I know she's watching.

Joanie, Rest in Peace.

Many Thanks

There are so many who have taken time to school this blogger re: the Roofing Scam, and to all, Thank You!

If people will allow it, I will thank them openly.

In the meantime, I should thank who first taught this blogger about roofing and waterproofing. I am not sure he is still with us, but he did know I had reported the scam to the FBI.

In 1981, a Roof Consultant from Law Engineering and Testing in Atlanta was brought on board on a project I was put in charge of all the "tough stuff" on.

His name was Matt Hitlin.

It was while working at a large firm in the Omni in Atlanta, the firm that did the Omni. The project that I was taught roofing and waterproofing on was the then $200 million corporate headquarters building for 2500 Engineers at the Southern Company Services.

Located on the top of a hill above a river south of Birmingham, Alabama, the structure was two winding buildings 2 acres in size and 4-5 stories tall each, with a snaking one acre atrium between them. One end of the atrium was level with the base of the buildings, at the other, it went down another level, then dropped another 6 levels into limestone waterfalls, at the edge of parking levels below.

The Trusses over the Atrium had a cold-applied Johns Manville inverted roof system at the valleys, and booted at the truss tops down to the JM system, a Terne Stainless Steel Batten Seam Roofing made by Follansbee in West Virginia. Terne is a 100-200 year product at the least - and in Europe, I heard of it lasting 400 years in one case.

On one of the buildings held top executives, so there was a raised helicopter landing pad planned. And that meant it had to be a cold-applied system, and Matt chose a JM cold-applied inverted roofing system.

Matt Hitlin taught me for two years how to roof, waterproof and put together all the detailing, a great detailing system for roofing and waterproofing. I had to design and detail so many products and the waterproofing below them (granite and limestone, huge areas) and all the other mentioned.

Matt was great. My boss? Went through and changed everything, didn't understand the first thing about how water moves and how to prevent water infiltration.

It was a great relief when the Southern Company, mother company to five southern states' power companies, decided to can the project. Plant Hatch (a nuclear power plant) was costing $200 million and they had to scrap the corporate headquarters.

It was not until I got to the West Coast, and spoke with David Devine, a Roof Consultant out of Gilroy, CA. who was head of the RCI's West Coast Region, that Matt Hitlin was considered to have written the "Bible" of Roofing. I am not surprised.

In or around 2000, I called Matt in Atlanta to tell him what had happened. He had started another organization in the 80s, and told me "we were fighting it then."

It's no wonder I caught onto what was going on. Thank you Matt - and for so many wonderful people since, at the MRCA and RCI members and NRCA members, etc. and in so many states and Canada - who taught me so much more - and who wanted it to change.

I hope one day we will be able to thank more - who can put a stop to it, and expose it like Steve Bennish did at the Dayton Daily News in 2000, and others since his first national link in the scam in that large daily newspaper, on the NY Times Newswire for 17 months.

Welcome to the School & Public Work National Roofing Scam Resource Guide

Glad you stopped by....if you are looking for information, we try to post as much info that could help you stop the scam in your area....unless of course you are one of those involved that doesn't want this information getting out.....

As to my professional background:
I am an architect with over 30 years' experience, half in Atlanta and half in San Francisco. See http://schoolroofingscam.blogspot.com/2008/02/about-blogger.html to find out who trained me in roofing - he wrote the "Bible" of roofing, I hear...

I began reports and attempting to stop the scam in the job where I caught it going on, in 1991. It's been that long - and so many billions lost in the US and beyond now....all because those in power in Facilities and other places were involved in the scam.

Please contact us with any information that might be of help to others!

-Janet Campbell, Architect

The Bakersfield Boys Blog

New!

The Bakersfield Boys Blog

How Managers, involved in the Garland Scam, lied to Kern High School Board Members and prevented Assistant Managers just below them from stopping the Scam...

Eventually, the Assistant Managers were "Frog-Marched" off Campus with Police after tattle-tales working for ??? at the California Legislature - Committee Aide(s) - told Kern HS District Managers that they had been turned into the FBI for their activities....

The Assistant Managers won a settlement in September, 2013.

It was all over the Garland Scam, using US COmmunities Purchasing Agency out of Walnut Creek, California.....

Kern High School District is the largest in California....with over 35,000 students.....

(In Progress, keep coming back for more!)

Spec Checks & Expert Witness - a new service!

Due to repeated requests for help analyzing specifications and assisting facilities managers caught in the middle, the Blogger has a new service - "Spec Checks" and Expert Witness work. Please contact the blogger at: roofreports@gmail.com

We check the specs for lock-out phrasing in the areas of Roofing & Waterproofing, and have others who can help with Sheet Metal/HVAC Bundling, Hardware, Sanitary Equipment, et. al.

Similar to what you see in spec breakdowns on this blog, we provide documentation to support those claims.

If you have a School District that needs help or a wake-up call, we can help you with that analyses and presentation, for a modest fee!

Email us at roofreports@gmail.com to enquire!

This is How the Cabal in California Works.....

Well if Peter Byrne isn't really tearing up the town!

He's the reporter who did "THE FIX IS IN" above....

He's got another expose out on Senator Dianne Feinstein.....this one is about the theft of Postal property for her husband....

Available Here, On Kindle, At Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Going-Postal-Senator-Feinsteins-ebook/dp/B00F3JTO9G/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1378933197&sr=1-1&keywords=going+postal+peter+byrne

NOTE: POLITICS is why the Scam keeps on keeping on.....do something and see who threatens you next, that'll give it away........

Links to Favorite Family Websites - No, not paid ads - For fun!

For those interested in the arts, music and writing and all things esoteric - from a brilliant musician/writer nephew and his artist wife in New York City - he plays in Europe and North America, for many groups, and records:

Bliss Street Studios

For those interested in Pop Rock and Universal Recording Artists, in both English and Spanish, a first cousin who opens for Cafe Tecuba and Maldinata, playing in Spain, New York City, LA, Texas and Mexico. They won an Ariel from the Mexican Academy of Film in 2005 for one of their songs in a film. They are now being produced by Andrew Weiss in New York, one of the producers for Yoko Ono and others.

He is Edi Kistler- on bass, left side of the band Los Liquits, pictured in the Park in the center of Mexico City, and located here:

Los Liquits