Former Marine protests tech transfer, claims retaliation

When President Obama draped the Medal of Honor over the neck of Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer on Sept. 15 to recognize his "conspicuous gallantry . . . at the repeated risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty" in Afghanistan in 2009, a program manager at the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command and two contractors were denigrating him as a mentally unstable individual with a drinking problem.

Meyer, in a lawsuit filed Monday and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, charged that the whisper campaign against him was begun by one of those contactors, BAE Systems, in retaliation for questioning the company's plan to sell advanced thermal optic scopes to Pakistan. The U.S. military uses those scopes on rifles and machine guns and Meyer regarded the possible technology transfer as potentially jeopardizing the lives of American troops. U.S. officials have long debated Pakistan's reliability as a partner in combatting terrorism, especially after Osama bin Laden was found to be living in the country just miles from a key military facility earlier this year. U.S. troops killed the man behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks during a raid of his compound in Abbottabad after a decade-long manhunt.

Meyer, who went to work for BAE Systems OASYS optical division in March 2011, emailed his supervisor, Bobby McCreight, in April saying that he had joined the company "to use the knowledge I had gained from the experiences I had while serving in combat operations to improve gear and make items to save the lives of U.S. troops." In that email, part of the filing in state district court in Bexar County, Texas, Meyer said, "we are simply taking the best gear, the best technology on the market to date and giving it to guys that are known to stab us in the back . . . These are the same people who are killing our guys."

The lawsuit, filed by the DeShazo and Nesbitt LLP law firm in Austin, Texas, charges that McCreight "began berating and belittling Sgt. Meyer for ridiculous things." The suit said that Meyer traveled to the New Hampshire headquarters of OASYS, at the behest of Vadim Plotsker, a senior executive.

According to the filing, McCreight took Meyer to task for making the trip without asking permission. In an email, McCreight said, "may I remind you whom [sic] works for who [sic]? You report to me, not Jerry [a peer] or Vadim [the division president]. Are we clear on that?"

The suit also alleged that McCreight taunted Meyer for his heroism in battle and his Medal of Honor nomination. McCreight, the suit said, "sarcastically and disdainfully ridiculed what he called Sgt. Meyer's 'pending star status.' "

At this point in his short BAE career, the suit said, Meyer decided that he could not work for a company that would sell weapons to Pakistan and determined its actions "gave a lie to its motto, 'Protecting those who protect us.' " Nor, the suit added, could he work for a man like McCreight, "who would attempt to bully and retaliate against him for respectfully raising his concerns." Meyer resigned May 31.

At no time, the suit said, "did McCreight issue Sgt. Meyer an actual reprimand or warning about his job performance or conduct. BAE never asked Sgt. Meyer to leave or suggested his job was in jeopardy."

Before joining BAE, Meyer worked for Ausgar Technologies, a San Diego-based SPAWAR contractor, from June 2010 until March 2011, where he received "rave reviews for performance" the suit said. His supervisor, Tom Grant, "has testified that Meyer was consistent, dependable, conscientious and very insightful in his work," the suit said.

Before leaving BAE, Meyer contacted Grant to see if Ausgar had openings on a team working on two SPAWAR projects, Keyhole Sniper Optics and the Route Clearance Optic Suite for the Joint IED Defeat Organization. Keyhole, as the name implies, refers to optical sights snipers use while Route Clearance systems are installed in vehicles.

To rehire Meyer, Grant needed to get permission from Bob Higginson, identified in the lawsuit as a "government program manager." Nextgov identified Higginson's role as a SPAWAR program manager.

In May, two spots opened up on the Ausgar team. Grant's two team leaders strongly endorsed Meyer based on his previous work at Ausgar and Grant believed Higginson was "on board" with the company rehiring Meyer, but that endorsement was scotched after McCreight had one or more conversations with Higginson in the last 10 days of May, the suit charged. McCreight, who the suit said was "acting in the course and scope of his employment with BAE," told Higginson that Meyer was "mentally unstable," did not perform assigned tasks and "had a problem related to drinking in a social setting."

The suit described McCreight's comments to Higginson as "false, defamatory and malicious."

On June 1, Grant emailed Meyer and told him that Ausgar would not hire him, as Higginson would not approve the hiring based on his conversations with McCreight.

That e email said:

"Bottom line, it was determined that based on conversations between Mr. Bobby McCreight and Mr. Bob Higginson, the RCOS/Keyhole government PM, that you were not recommended to be placed back on the team due to being mentally unstable, and no [sic] performing on OASYS tasks assigned. Details were not provided but RCOS/Keyhole PM was basically told that based on your current work performance and not doing what was assigned as well as your activities in a social setting related to drinking, you were not performing as required to support our effort going forward.

"As a result, Bob recommended to me, based on phone conversations with Mr. McCreight, that you should not be brought back to the team."

The suit names BAE and McCreight as defendants, charging they willfully and without legal justification interfered with Meyer's prospective employment relationships and asked for unspecified actual and punitive damages.

Brian Roehrkasse, a BAE spokesman, said in an emailed statement that "although we disagree with Mr. Meyer's claims about Mr. McCreight, himself a former Marine staff sergeant, Mr. Meyer's heroic actions in Afghanistan serve as a reminder to all our employees of why we do what we do at BAE Systems -- to help bring the men and women of our armed forces home from the battlefield safely".

He added, "we are grateful to Dakota Meyer for his valiant service and bravery above and beyond the call of duty."

Roehrkasse said the State Department determines the defense-related products that can be exported. In recent years, the U.S. government has approved the export of defense-related goods from numerous defense companies to Pakistan as part of the United States' bilateral relationship with that country. The State Department spokesperson during his afternoon press briefing on Nov. 29 confirmed that BAE Systems has not sold [thermal] sights to Pakistan.

Ausgar said it had no comment on the lawsuit.