in Houston, Texas

At the same time Houston airport officials were using city resources to create a maze of obscure private companies, several of those same city airport employees appear to have laid the groundwork to secure potentially lucrative jobs at those very same companies.

Top Houston Airport System officials waltzed through a revolving door into the airport's web of spinoff firms in the seven years since it created a nonprofit to build and run airports in other countries, Texas Watchdog has found.

Some who have been following this story say this raises questions about conflicts of interest, as well as questions about whether these city officials were putting the taxpayer first — or paving the way for potentially profitable careers.

“What is happening, it appears, is that these people are using their access to expertise, building knowledge in order to exploit the city and take that somewhere else,” said Russell Muirhead, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. "... At the deepest level, what's going on at the (airport system) is a corruption of the ethic of public service. The market mentality -- where each person is expected to maximize his or her own interest -- has crept into public service jobs."

At least five airport system employees -- who were Houston city workers -- have taken jobs in recent years with the private offshoot firms created by the airport system:

+ Two airport system executives went to work in Quito, Ecuador, where the Houston operation is running one airport and building another.

+ At least three top airport system officials have left the city to go to work directly for the nonprofit the airport system created, HAS Development Corp., Texas Watchdog found.

+ It is unclear whether the airport system's current No. 2 official, who is also vice chairman of the nonprofit's board, works for the city or for the Costa Rican airport projects in which the nonprofit is involved. City officials did not respond to questions about his job status.

It's also unclear to what extent Houston Mayor Bill White is, or was, aware of these personnel moves -- White declined an interview request Friday with Texas Watchdog about airport-related issues, and White spokesman Patrick Trahan did not respond to questions e-mailed to him early Monday afternoon.

White, who forced out airport system chief Richard Vacar roughly six weeks ago, told the Houston Chronicle in May that "he was concerned about a 'revolving door'" at the airport system. He has launched a review of HASDC's activities that is slated to be complete by the end of the summer, Trahan said.

The airport system's work building and running airports in other nations is “a huge tool for developing talent" in the city-run airport system, Vacar told an airport trade magazine earlier this year.

The city's existing "cooling off period" laws would only prevent city workers from leaving jobs to immediately lobby the city, City Controller Annise Parker said last week. Otherwise, there is no legal prohibition against city workers jumping ship to a private firm that contracts with the city.

Texas Watchdog found the following staff members revolving through the doors of the airport system's intertwined private firms:

Luis Perez left his position as the airport system's deputy director in 2003 to become chairman of Quiport, the nonprofit-connected consortium overseeing the Ecuadoran projects. The exact date of his move to Quiport is difficult to determine from the available public records; many of the personnel shifts have been done below the radar, obfuscated by the secrecy with which this web of private groups operates. Perez tendered his resignation to Quiport in May of this year, citing "personal reasons," Quiport said in a statement; he could not be reached for comment for this story.

In a July 2003 profile of Perez by the Houston Chronicle, Vacar said Perez's "knowledge of international airport privatization projects" would help the airport system and the nonprofit "continue to develop new projects in Latin America and elsewhere."

Perez also served as interim president of HAS Development Corp. in 2006 after president Hoyt L. Brown retired. The nonprofit and Quiport got a $200 million line of credit to do the Ecuadoran projects from the Overseas Private Investment Corp., a federal agency.

Richard Berrones, who began working for the Houston Airport System in 1991 and served as deputy director of finance and administration at least through 2005, left to live and work in Quito on the Quiport-run airport projects there, according to public records reviewed by Texas Watchdog. An online directory of international airport officials listed him as managing director of Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport, which was built in 1960 and which will be closed when the new Quito airport is finished.

Hoyt L. Brown retired at the end of 2003 from his position as the airport system's deputy director for aviation and moved over to the nonprofit to become its president. He retired from HASDC at the end of June 2006 and now lives in Gray, Ga., population 1,800. He has not returned several calls from Texas Watchdog.

The job status of Thomas Bartlett, the airport system's chief operating officer and vice president of HAS Development Corp., was unclear this week despite Texas Watchdog's questions regarding whether he works for the city or for the nonprofit-affiliated airport projects in Costa Rica.

(Story continues below diagram; click here to jump down.)





The outgoing message on Bartlett's Houston office phone said he was out of the office on extended leave until July 17, and airport system spokesman Roxanne Butler said Bartlett was on vacation -- but he was apparently at work in Costa Rica on Monday. Texas Watchdog reached the Houston Airport System office at Juan Santamaria International Airport, outside the Costa Rican capital city of San Jose, on Monday, and left a phone message for Bartlett; the woman who took the message said Bartlett had been in the office earlier that day. Meanwhile, Bartlett was still on the Houston city payroll as of Friday, a spokeswoman for Parker's office said.

A call placed last week to Bartlett’s cell phone rang to foreign exchange; on a later call, Bartlett hung up after Texas Watchdog asked about his current base of operations.

A review last month of Vacar's office calendar by Texas Watchdog showed Bartlett had traveled to Costa Rica on HASDC-related business six times between Jan. 1, 2008, and mid-May 2009.

Robert C. White, who worked for the airport system as manager of Bush Intercontinental Airport, moved over to HASDC earlier this year to be its vice president of airport services. He is a 35-year veteran of airport managing, consulting and development, and like Vacar, he used to work at Lockheed Air Terminal.

Sandra C. Gonzalez was named director of business development for HAS Development Corp. earlier this year after 12 years working in the operation of Bush Intercontinental and Hobby airports, according to an HASDC press release. It also noted that she was “involved in the transition of the Quito Airport from a public to private airport operator.”

Continued on Page 2: Revolving door: Employees move as airport "unbundles" itself

Revolving door photo by flickr user jlcwalker, used via the Creative Commons license.

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