Halliburton is thought by many to be an unscrupulous, greedy, evil company that either gouges the American people by charging exhorbitant prices or participating in evil plots for the government. I can tell you from personal experience that neither description is true. In fact, Halliburton is a very well run company with integrity that would make you proud to be an employee or associate. I know, I have had a great deal of association with Halliburton.

I have made a living the past thirty-five years designing electrical systems that control the operation of large oil refineries, chemical plants, nuclear power plants, and offshore oil platforms. The company I worked for for most of that time was the largest engineering and construction company in the world. As such, we worked for many large corporations and governments of the world including Saudi Arabia, U.S.A, Shell Oil of Malysia, Alyeska Corporation (owner of the Alaska pipeline), South Korea, Boeing, NASA, Exxon, State of Texas, etc. On many occasions the project we were hired to design and/or build was part of a much larger project, and a large number of those overall projects were managed and coordinated for the owners by Halliburton Industries.

Halliburton originated as a supplier of equipment and personnel to the petroleum industry. An excellent work ethic and a reputation for successfully handling very large and complicated jobs made Halliburton the choice of most of the industry for that purpose. Eventually Halliburton expanded and diversified into a myriad of different industries. They are a major testing contractor for NASA. They have become the US government’s choice for civil engineering such as rebuilding disaster areas and war ravaged nations, managing large military construction projects, building Veteran’s Administration Hospitals, and so forth. They excell in managing large, integrated projects that require many sub-contractors of differing disciplines. It was no wonder to me when they were given the job of putting Iraq back together without having to bid against rival companies.

The U.S. government has a universe of rules and restrictions it uses in their process of obtaining equipment and services from civilian businesses. For example, in the private fire alarm industry, a fire alarm company is free to set their own prices for labor and their alarm equipment when selling to other private companies. The alarm salesman is adept at offering systems to potential customers that can beat his competitor’s price yet still provide a decent profit to his company. If that same salesman were to pursue a contract for an alarm system in a new V.A. Hospital, he would find himself dealing with Halliburton who would be the government’s prime contractor. Halliburton would provide the salesman with a schedule of acceptable equipment and the price range allowed for it. The labor rate ranges are also set by the government. The salesman is required to provide a cost sheet showing his wholesale cost of the equipment, mark-up, and actual wages of the people who will perform the design and installation of the system. When submitted to Halliburton, the cost sheet will be analyzed for compliance with the government’s price and wage rates. If any profit margin or labor rates are above the government’s standards Halliburton will correct the costs and return it to the alarm company.

Once the project begins, the alarm company is required by the government to submit monthly status reports showing the percentage of the job they were able to complete that month, the amount of equipment shipped to the job, the equipment actually installed, the number of total labor hours performed broken down into supervisor, journeyman, and apprentice hours, and the cost of these items as a percentage of the total project price. All of this is submitted on government forms per their instructions to Halliburton. A month later, the alarm company receives a check for the previous month’s submittal. This means the alarm company must prepay a month of salaries and prepay their equipment supplier for the system. The alarm company will constantly be a month behind in their payments to labor and suppliers when dealing with the government.

For the reasons above, very few companies are willing or able to bid or contract with the government. The government has, over the years, determined which companies work within their constraints efficiently and in the cases where the work is needed in a short time period or is of a secret or hazardous nature, the process of putting these contracts out for competitive bidding is just not practical and they depend on their list of preferred contractors to do the work immediately, on time, and within the budget.

For the most part, the rules the government has for companies working for them serves to provide a good or high quality performance for a price well under what private industry can provide. There are, of course, pros and cons to this process, just as there are in private industry. But when there is mountains of paperwork to do, some of the largest and most expensive projects being done, a need to expedite equipment and labor schedules, and do it all in coordination with a multitude of other companies, Halliburton has not only perfected the process, but it has managed to become a very profitable corporation providing hundreds of thousands of jobs for the people of America.

A company must make a choice when contemplating going after government contracts. The limited profit margin requires that efficiency be among the highest of priorities of concern. In addition, a dedication of a large portion of your corporation to the government’s projects is necessary. By making the choice to become a preferred government contractor who does a lot of work for the USA, and resolving yourself to the requiement to provide a first rate product to the country for a discounted price to the taxpayers, a very good and dependable life can be made for the owners and their employees.

In closing, I have been perplexed every time I hear criticism of Halliburton, more often that not some snide criticism of Dick Cheney is in there somewhere. And, the people making those critical remarks will admit that what they "know" about Halliburton comes from the news programs and politician’s statements. It is then perfectly clear to me. The fact is, these uninformed critics actually don’t know ANTHING about Halliburton, the way government executes contracts, or even about Dick Cheney. But, I’ve learned one thing if not many, that this is standard thinking when the news media is the source of their knowledge.

Glenn Flowers