"Florida airport engineering adviser pledges review"

Friday, July 25, 2003 

Airport adviser pledges review
By Scott Wyman
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel


The engineering firm under fire for shoddy inspections of construction at
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport promised Thursday to conduct
an internal review of its work. 

Qore Property Sciences plans to have corporate officials from outside
Florida investigate, but its regional manager also said he is confident the
company never violated its contract with the airport. For two years, the
airport relied on Qore's assurances that construction work met critical
safety standards even though there were serious questions about the
company's reliability. 
 
"Our reputation for integrity and expertise is of paramount importance to
us, and we must fully examine the issues being raised in Broward County,"
said W. Ronald Woods, a Qore vice president and regional manager for Florida
operations. 

Airport officials dropped Qore as their engineering lab almost two months
ago after a group of dissatisfied company employees filed a whistleblower
complaint. The county has tightened its contract requirements and is looking
for a new firm to finish the inspection work.

Woods said the internal review will assess staffing, inspections and billing
involved with Qore's $747,000 airport contract. A separate investigation
being conducted by the county's professional standards office should be
completed within a couple of weeks. 

Qore is an employee-owned firm with headquarters in Duluth, Ga., that has
been ranked as one of the top 200 engineering firms in the nation. Woods
said he thinks any problems with Qore's inspections at the airport were
minor, considering the scope of the $500 million in construction work. 

The company was hired in 2001 to ensure contractors were not using
substandard material in building the recently opened Terminal 1, a new
roadway system and the rental car facility-parking garage now under
construction. An investigation by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel revealed
Qore set up a lab that had never been inspected and used technicians who did
not have industry certification. 

Construction managers had long expressed a lack of confidence in Qore,
documenting concerns ranging from questionable testing of concrete to the
use of ill-trained technicians. An internal Qore memo obtained by the
Sun-Sentinel also sharply criticized the lab's operations as violating
nationally recognized testing procedures.

"We believe the county will find that our practices and services were
consistent with the contract," Woods said. "If problems are found, we will
address them with the county and make certain they are not repeated
elsewhere."


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