FMC projects continue amid administrative shakeup

Eric Herrera, associate vice president of Facilities, Management and Construction (FMC), and Michael Wetzel, the operations director of FMC, are no longer employed at UHCL following an internal investigation conducted by University of Houston System. Since their departure, Mark Denney, vice president for Administration and Finance, is the acting associate vice president of FMC.

Brad McGonagle, former executive director of Human Resources, and Denney would not disclose the reason they are no longer with the university nor what prompted the investigation. 

“Due to confidentiality considerations regarding personnel actions, especially given the appeals process is still in effect, I am unable to respond to [the] inquiry,” said McGonagle.

There was no university-wide announcement about their departures.

Herrera, who started Oct. 15, 2018, and Wetzel, who started June 2019, were both given the opportunity to appeal as policy allows. The appeals process gives regular, non-faculty employees of UHCL who have a disagreement with management on an employment decision to express their grievances and have a hearing panel hear them.

The process goes through an informal resolution, formal grievance and appeal. However, staff who want to appeal their termination of employment may skip to formal grievance.

The appeals committee met to decide on Herrera and Wetzel’s cases. As of July 23, Denney had seen one of the final recommendations but had not gotten to the other.

“It’s never an easy situation when an employee leaves like that, and so before decisions were made, we did our homework and we are confident that it was the right decision, even if it was difficult, and I’m confident the appeals process will demonstrate that we did not act rashly,” Denney said.

Herrera and Wetzel’s departures from FMC has prompted questions about current FMC projects around campus. FMC is working on a range of projects including: fixing the air ventilation in some of the classrooms, upgrading technology, upgrading conference rooms, renovating the library and repaving part of the road. Because of the processes required to complete such projects, they are moving slower.

“Contracting and doing these types of large projects for the state is a little more complicated than other places for a myriad of reasons, but the primary one is that we have a responsibility to the public: to both our students – a lot of the dollars we spend are their tuition dollars – but also to the state, who gives us dollars as well to demonstrate that we’re really getting our best value for our dollars and that we’re doing things that they would approve with the dollars and so we have more processes [than a private company],” Denney said.

The remaining leadership within FMC are continuing the on-going projects, but not without setbacks.

Beyond delays associated with upper-level personnel changes, FMC has encountered setbacks for multiple reasons like vendors taking longer to send quotes, scheduling conflicts with classes in session and an increase in employees not on campus or out of the office. 

“Those were key leadership positions in our facilities department,” Denney said. “Now I want to stress that the managers one level below Mr. Herrera and Mr. Wetzel are incredibly good, they know their work, they know it well, they know this university well, and they’re doing a great job and they’re stepping up.”

The process involves the employee and respondent, the university manager or supervisor against whom the grievance is filed.

• For the informal resolution an employee submits a written request about issues they believe should be met. The respondent, the university manager or supervisor, can agree, reject or propose an alternate solution.
• For the formal grievance the employee submits the Staff Grievance Intake and Resolution Form after their termination or if unsatisfied with the informal resolution results. A hearing panel deliberates and makes a recommended finding that the Executive Director delivers to the parties involved and the President or designee.
• An appeal can be filed to the President or designee 10 business days after the formal grievance who then communicates their decision based on the findings they received from the panel.