DOL and Government Contractors Oversight!

I am Farokh (Faro) Hejazi, and I am a registered architect.

My First Amendment right as an American citizen grants me the right to petition the U.S. government for redress of a grievance.

From November 2018 to November 2021, I worked as a facility survey architect on the Job Corps program as a government Contractor. I was fired, allegedly due to a conflict of interest with my former employer.

The truth is, I had exceeded my employer’s ability to understand the complexities involved in improving the Job Corps program. Additionally, I had proposed investing seed money to stimulate positive change. I had identified programmatic dysfunctions and developed solutions to address them. I had created a funding mechanism that could spark change in a positive direction. I was fired because I signed a non-compete agreement with my former employer.

Why speak up now? Better late than never!

I am not an ordinary problem solver. I develop solutions that benefit other professionals to secure their success. Once I find a solution that works—one that removes waste and generates wealth in a system—I become undeterred and willingly fund the implementation of my solutions to prove my point. Don’t stop a man on a mission to improve a dysfunctional system.

I had offered my supervisor $20,000 in seed money to fund the implementation of my solutions, which clearly outlined the dysfunction in the Contractor’s operations. My email was forwarded to the wrong individuals, who never approached me.

I decided to double the amount and offer it to the former Secretary of Labor, including a check payable to Ms. Mary Smith, the former Labor Solicitor, for legal counsel on creating an impartial oversight committee. The money would fund my own research. I was trying to leave my employer while staying on the program and avoiding being fired so I could continue my work and share my findings with the key stakeholders on all sides.

Instead of being acknowledged, my efforts resulted in my dismissal.

There are connections between the program's potential, its ongoing dysfunction, and DOL’s current phased shutdown of the program. Contractors are often blinded by the influx of wealth and fail to recognize their failure to improve a system through optimization. Prolonged oversights worsen a government’s investment in a system that becomes a national sinkhole for funding and a problem that is difficult to diagnose.

Furthermore, the Centers in each region face local challenges such as labor shortages and are unable to address national-level concerns that significantly impact their local operations. Without a vision, strategic planning, and strong leadership, these issues persist and directly hinder the program's ability to fulfill its purpose effectively.

Critically, maintenance workers at local Centers—who are vital to daily operations and ideally positioned to oversee and report on local Contractor progress on improvement projects—are leaving the workforce at an alarming rate or being unjustly terminated. They are often scapegoated for problems caused by systemic dysfunction.

I had the concrete steps that can be taken to address these gaps and generate wealth; otherwise, I wouldn’t be so eager to invest in such a system.

Creating a reward system for maintenance staff and granting them more authority to oversee improvements at their Centers can help retain their vital contributions while promoting a more accountable, efficient, and inclusive management structure. Improved financial planning and asset management practices, which are crucial for DOL and Job Corps leadership, should be encouraged. Initiatives aimed at resolving scheduling and resource allocation issues should be supported, and contractors who ignore oversight issues that benefit their profits should be reprimanded.

I had developed an implementation plan for a vision emphasizing transparency, collaborative leadership, and inclusion. The DOL's Job Corps program has the potential to serve as a model for efficiency and effective program management and deserves recognition as such, but inclusion is key and essential.

I urge the Job Corps and the Department of Labor to reassess critical operational aspects of this program’s management to ensure awareness and accountability at all levels and volunteer my support (at no cost) to advocate for these essential changes and guide their implementation. My support can serve as an example of the much-needed diversity and inclusion necessary for genuine collaboration.

I would appreciate the reactivation of my former DOL email address as a sign that I have been heard and that my participation is considered active. The urgency of these issues calls for reforming government practices to enable federal, state, and local authorities to support individuals who challenge their employers in order to improve systems that are much larger than each of us, through honest collaboration that allows each of us to fulfill our personal and professional aspirations and mission for American society.

Please take a moment to sign my Petition and forward this link to your like-minded colleagues: https://www.change.org/helpjccnow

Yours sincerely,

Farokh (Faro) Hejazi, RA

410-858-5088

FYI: Here's a video I made years ago addressing one of the more significant issues.

https://youtu.be/Cs-cfisF9hY