Ted, the plant environmental manager for a wood products company in southern Oregon, told Session 7B of the Leadership Development Lab.

"The stretch goal I set at Session 3B of the Leadership Lab was to apply for emission credits that our site should qualify for as a result of the shutdown of our plywood plant. To get the tax credit and appropriate rebate we needed to get the application in before December 15th.

I thought all I would need to do would be to write down the emission numbers that are listed on our air permit and send it off to the Salem DEQ requesting that they bank it. I was about to do just that when I decided to call the air permit writer at the DEQ Office and check to see if my logic was correct. He told me that I needed to go back through the production records for the last two years the plywood mill operated, pick the highest consecutive 12-month operating period and recalculate the emission forms for

all the emission points. I had to complete a form to modify our air permit, another form for our site general manager to sign, attached a check for $300, and then send it off to the Salem DEQ office.

The scope of the job had suddenly changed by a factor of ten. In spite of all the added complexity, I beat my goal by fifteen days and received the permit modification a month ago. The sad part of the story is that we've been paying fees to DEQ for years based on the original permit numbers. We were only able to bank less than a third of the assessed numbers because of plywood's reduced operating posture.

The lesson I learned from the experience is to make sure I fully understand the scope of a project and all that is required before I start a task. The action I call you to take is to ask questions and get the fact straight before you launch out on a project. The benefit you will gain is you will get the job done right on time the first time."