These WJ Board of Directors folks are our business leaders and we wonder why the world is in trouble. On the other hand this Gentleman deserves our respect.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../Business/home
The WestJet whistle-blower
BRENT JANG AND PATRICK BRETHOUR
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
TORONTO AND CALGARY — On his four-acre spread in central Alberta, the man who blew the whistle on WestJet Airlines is convinced that not only did he do the right thing, he did the company a big favour.
Melvin Crothers exited his WestJet job, left the airline industry and has yet to receive any thanks from Air Canada for exposing Calgary-based WestJet's 2003-2004 spying campaign. He doesn't hold out much hope that Air Canada chairman Robert Milton or WestJet chairman Clive Beddoe will praise him for playing the good Samaritan.
“I have not got one word of thanks from anybody,” Mr. Crothers said. “When I get the card in the mail from Robert Milton telling me that I'm such a wonderful guy, then maybe I'll hang that on the wall. I doubt that will ever come.”
Two twists of fate in a single afternoon would transform Mr. Crothers into a whistle-blower, setting in motion a chain of events that would lead to Air Canada launching a $220-million lawsuit, WestJet executive departures, an offer by Mr. Beddoe to resign and a public humiliation for the discount carrier.
For the past three years, the identify of the Didsbury, Alta., resident as corporate whistle-blower has been closely guarded by Air Canada (Chris Bolin for The Globe and Mail)
If not for casual cubicle banter, Mr. Crothers may have never found out that WestJet was accessing confidential Air Canada data. And if not for Mr. Beddoe being on vacation, the reluctant informant would not have contacted Air Canada directly.
In April of 2004, Air Canada filed its lawsuit against WestJet, but the two airlines reached an out-of-court settlement this May.
WestJet admitted that it had stolen sensitive data on passenger loads by electronically spying on Air Canada's confidential employee website.
“It certainly has been an embarrassment for Clive,” Mr. Crothers said.
“I think this has made WestJet a lot stronger because it's hardened the employees and it's made people aware that they should hold their heads up and have ethics. But I don't know why Clive would want to thank me.”
WestJet spokeswoman Gillian Bentley said Tuesday that WestJet considers the court file to be a closed case. “It's behind us, we're moving on. We're not interested in bringing this up over and over again. We settled the lawsuit and it's a done deal,” said Ms. Bentley, who declined further comment.
Mr. Crothers, 60, worked in WestJet's marketing department for one year, resigning four days after Air Canada filed the lawsuit because he thought it would be “untenable” to stay. Prior to WestJet, his 25-year aviation career included stops at Pacific Western Airlines, Canadian Airlines International and Signature Vacations.
This summer, he kept busy with chores, taking 30 minutes to cut his sprawling lawn with a riding mower or hopping into his red 1996 Dodge Ram truck to haul lumber. He now teaches a first-aid course in nearby Didsbury, 85 kilometres north of Calgary, and obtained a real-estate licence on Friday, with a view to becoming an agent.
The volunteer chairman for the Didsbury region's tourism association also enjoys family reunions on the acreage whenever his two daughters visit him and his second wife, Pat. Mr. Crothers particularly likes playing chess with his seven-year-old grandson, Owen, one of five grandchildren.
But the seemingly bright picture of semi-retirement belies his sadness at leaving the airline industry. Mr. Crothers made $180,000 a year at Signature Vacations in the late 1990s, plus bonuses. At WestJet, he drew an annual salary of $50,000.
For the past 2½ years, the whistle-blower's identity at WestJet has been known only to a small circle of lawyers and executives at Canada's two largest airlines. It has been an enduring mystery to the public as to how it came to pass that an anonymous WestJet worker exposed improper accessing of Air Canada's employee website.
The Globe and Mail obtained legal documents to identify and trace Mr. Crothers, who then agreed to speak publicly for the first time about how — and why — he blew the whistle. Air Canada had gone to great lengths to keep him anonymous, blacking out his name and phone number in a handwritten note entered as a court exhibit.
Three years ago, retirement was the farthest thing from his mind. He had just landed a full-time position at WestJet after spending six months working on contract. It all came down to four hours on the Friday afternoon of Dec. 19, 2003. At 1:30 p.m., Mr. Crothers was having a “casual conversation” at the desk of Duncan Bureau, WestJet director of sales, according to the informant's sworn affidavit.
Mr. Bureau couldn't be reached Tuesday for comment.
Mr. Bureau displayed his computer screen bearing Air Canada's logo, said the affidavit, and the screen also showed Air Canada's load factors, or the proportion of available seats filled, between Calgary and Vancouver.
By 1:45 p.m., Mr. Crothers — stewing back in his cubicle — became so upset about the “information leak” that he decided to go straight to the top and inform Mr. Beddoe, who is WestJet's chief executive officer as well as its chairman.
“I went up to see if Clive was there, and Clive wasn't there. He was away for the Christmas vacation,” Mr. Crothers recalled.
Mr. Beddoe has said that he told WestJet co-founder Mark Hill to stop his electronic snooping in the summer of 2003, but that Mr. Hill disobeyed the order. Mr. Hill resigned as WestJet vice-president of strategic planning in July of 2004.
What Mr. Crothers wonders is how events might have played out if Mr. Beddoe had been in his office six days before Christmas, 2003.
With Mr. Beddoe absent, the WestJet whistle-blower wasn't sure what to do next. At 4 p.m., just 2½hours after Mr. Crothers saw the website, he left the airline's Calgary head office at his usual quitting time. But the security breach gnawed away at him.
At 4:50 p.m. at his rural home, he made a short phone call to former WestJet president Stephen Smith — at that point the president of Air Canada's Calgary-based Zip Air operation — telling him about how WestJet had access to the confidential website. Mr. Crothers thought he was making an anonymous phone call, but Mr. Smith had call display. That brief conversation triggered a series of events that led to Air Canada discovering WestJet's electronic spying campaign.
At the time, Mr. Crothers believed that WestJet was not to blame, and it was a “rogue employee” at Air Canada who was leaking internal data on passenger loads to WestJet by allowing access to the website. In hindsight, he says, he was being naive.
“I've taken a lot of personal pain and agony over this,” Mr. Crothers said. “I didn't like what I found out about the website. It was wrong, morally and ethically, and I'm a Christian man. I was upset at the whole deal.”
One reason for his upset: questions about whether he had benefited financially. An Alberta court's subpoena requested that he show up at a Toronto law office in June of 2004 and bring along his banking records starting from Dec. 1, 2003.
WestJet lawyers grilled Mr. Crothers about his personal finances. He emphasizes that Mr. Milton, who is based in Montreal, never had any contact with him to entice him to become a witness in the lawsuit.
“They were wrongly assuming that Robert Milton was sending me cheques,” Mr. Crothers said. “Air Canada wasn't paying me under the table.”
Mr. Crothers had given a gift to his eldest daughter — purebred Red Angus cattle, worth $11,000. That gift was back in 1997 and was paid for by his own savings, and not in late 2003, he was forced to explain to WestJet lawyers.
Those details are contained in the whistle-blower's affidavit, part of a court record that was made publicly available only in recent weeks.
But Mr. Crothers doesn't see himself as an informant. He views his role as that of a corporate hero, and he is hurt by how he felt compelled to abruptly resign from WestJet.
On April 5, 2004, the day before Air Canada filed its lawsuit, two Air Canada security managers named Len Meilleur and Doug Workman showed up with no notice at Mr. Crothers's home and told him about the pending lawsuit.
From Dec. 19, 2003, until April 5, 2004, he said, he stayed quiet about his clandestine phone call to Zip's Mr. Smith. So when the two Air Canada managers arrived, he began to shake and turn red.
Adding to the stress, Mr. Crothers's father-in-law was suffering from a brain tumour, and died months later.
On April 6, 2004, Air Canada filed its espionage lawsuit against WestJet. Four days later, Mr. Crothers quit his job.
Blowing the whistle came with a high personal cost, but Mr. Crothers said it's what his father, a by-the-rules police officer, would have expected. It was his duty to bring the matter to light, and that duty came with a price, not a payoff.
“This has been terribly hard, and it certainly wasn't for any personal gain,” Mr. Crothers said.