Todd Watson June 5, 1998
VP & General Counsel

Lucy Finger
Director, Human Resources

I am directing this to you, because I have nowhere else to turn for direction and guidance.

Attached you will find

(1) Performance Counseling form delivered to me June 1, 1998 by Bill Thurlow and Keanan Wright.
(2) My response, delivered June 3, 1998 to Bill Thurlow and Keanan Wright.

In the June 3, 1998 session, before the traditional exchange of signatures, I acknowledged that different conclusions can be arrived at with the same set of facts, and asked them if either saw any factual errors in my response. I received no acknowledgment to my question. My observation of Keanan"s demeanor during the June 1st and 3rd meetings leads me to believe his heart isn"t in it.

I have done a lot of soul searching into the wee hours of the morning. I know I am not perfect, even without my current disability, I am bound to make mistakes. While I am paraphrasing, more than one source has commented "show me anyone is this building, much less this department, that hasn"t miss-communicated or missed a deadline".

In this soul searching, I have come to realize that I have made mistakes that were repeated. I have missed signals and made mistakes in priorities. However, the repeats most probably would not have happened if corrective action or guidance had taken place at the time. It is especially troubling because my medical care team cautioned me that it would happen. This fact was made known to Bill Thurlow, and I specifically requested he and my teammates let me know if they observed any uncharacteristic behavior. Treatments can exacerbate the very symptoms they are designed to cure. Monitoring and modification of treatment is the safe and prudent norm. However, if the change is not noticed or reported by the patient, the clinician has no cause to alter a treatment that appears to be working. Ignoring an easily accommodated request for a partnership in my well being is deleterious to my personal and professional life, and a disservice to the company.

This has been a long and debilitating journey back to health, with many regressions and setbacks. First Health has denied the most effective treatment protocols. Alternative maintenance treatments (not curative) are now being subjected to medical review denials. I am in effect being shut off from access to any form of health care that can bring my health back. They are even demanding refunds for treatments that had been previously approved.

My technical performance has never been an issue, at least up until now. My resume shows many long-held responsible positions; professional recruiters in Houston and Dallas still pursue me, teammates continue to seek me out for assistance and guidance. It is the single bright point in my life right now, the ability to be able to focus on something to conclusion. It reinforces and strengthens my resolve to make a difference. My reputation is well known even beyond Texas. My wife"s former consulting firm has been trying for 6 years to hire me based on my credentials and references.

My interpersonal skills are known to be lacking; it is a known and documented outfall of my disease progression. In what Keanan Wright termed a "fireside chat" (the HR meeting I requested), I asked to not be placed in large group situations. My doctor has responded to the company request for a accommodation needs statement that my interpersonal situations be limited. Yet I continue to be placed in these situations, and warned that my future employment with MRG is in jeopardy without improvement. This improvement cannot take place without proper medical treatment. Said treatment being denied by our plan administrator, First Health. The means to corrective action are beyond my control, yet I am to be held solely accountable for the outcome.

Many times in our careers, we are forced to make a choice between doing what is safe, and what is right. We know from professional experience that it is hard to determine outcomes from a single observation. It is only through repeated observations that patterns become obvious.

Although we prevailed against my wife"s former employers with the assistance of the Labor Department, it is an experience that neither my wife or myself want to go through again. We cannot afford the toll on our mental and physical well-being. Yet this being backed-into-a-corner feeling leads me to feel that the source of these employment endangering attacks are based upon my pursuit of benefits. With my demonstrated technical skills, the company gets a lot of bang for their buck. An easily granted accommodation to my lessened interpersonal skills would eliminate a source of friction. It can only be a cost containment issue. This in spite of the documented and recognized cost savings to the company. These functionality and reliability improvements were not assigned to me, I sought them out, implemented them.

Even here the company can benefit through experience.

In 1986, the CDC conducted a study of all Garland School District 6th graders. They found that almost two-thirds had positive Lyme antibodies, this in an area where at that time no indications of an endemic situation existed. Even when eliminating the statistical sampling of students with a history of recent measles or Herpes Simplex I (cold sores), it still left a sizable population capable of developing Lyme Disease. This being 1998, it places that study group into their twenty-somethings. It is from this demographic that our prime recruitment efforts for future management comes from. We cannot not hire from this demographic. It would be wrong, and establish a pattern of employment discrimination. If you extrapolate the Garland experience across the migratory patterns between the known endemic areas and the study area, you will see a significant overlay with our unit locations.

Companies have had to learn to deal with the lessened education levels and career motivations of Generation-X. A recruitment and maintenance cost never experienced with previous generations. Yet one that had to be embraced to keep the company viable, just another cost of doing business.

Likewise, it is a fact of life that the emergence of Lyme Disease among a significant part of our current and future employee base is inevitable. See it coming, act proactively. The CDC is currently spending more on Lyme Disease research than on AIDS. Discrimination against Lyme Disease is second only to AIDS because we don"t die off as quickly. The "hot zone" professionals take this threat seriously.

Bill has told me that he has been the subject of EEOC complaints in the past. I don"t know the number or outcomes, so no confidentiality has been breached. Although I have been professionally advised to pursue an employment discrimination suit, it is not a course that my wife or myself want to pursue. Through late diagnosis and a like pattern of obstructing treatment, she has become totally disabled. For a person that started her career with NASA and the Space Shuttle teams and progressed to a top-level consultant in a variety of industries; she has owned two consulting companies of her own. Then, to lose what had been termed a brilliant mind is emotionally devastating, forget trying to resolve the physical degeneration. Neither one of us wants that to happen to anyone else, yet the same patterns are emerging.

As our own experiences have shown, trade magazines report on, and court cases prove; intent does not have to be proved, the presence of patterns is enough to prevail.

One item covered towards the conclusion of the June 3rd meeting: Under the "Consequences" heading of the Counseling Form, "If integrity, communication, and work habit issues are not resolved we will evaluate your continued employment at MRG." I requested that a written plan be produced so that progress can be measured. To avoid emotionally charged yet equivocal worded statements, I am requesting HR involvement in developing that plan; to ensure that it is truly measurable, and obtainable.

This divisive matter must stop. We must get back on the same page, and get on with business. I have always been focused and goal oriented, the mission comes first. Please help me get back to work, not watching my back all the time.



Respectfully,




R. James Martin