Not too long ago, an employee at the Arizona State Compensation Fund was questioned under oath during legal proceedings against the fund. Some of the questioning dealt with the work atmosphere inside State Fund headquarters. At one point, the questioning turned to The Firm, a film about a seemingly respectable law firm that actually had a dangerous, intrigue-filled background.
One segment of the resulting Q&A is enlightening:
Question: Did you see the movie The Firm?
Answer: Yes.
Q: Did you hear a joke about how the State Comp Fund is run like the law firm was run in the movie The Firm?
A: Yes.
Q: Is that sort of a running joke?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you partake in that joke?
A: Yes.
Q: What did that mean when the State Comp Fund was referred to as The Firm, like the firm in the movie?
A: Personally, just because of the appearance of the office politics.
Q: There are a lot of dead lawyers showing up in the movie The Firm. Do you recall that?
A: Yes.
Q: Do you equate Greg with being somewhat like one of those dead lawyers?
Fund lawyer: Objection.
Q: What is your objection?
Fund lawyer: It's an improper question.
There was a time when Greg Heeb was a golden boy of sorts at the State Compensation Fund, the quasi-governmental entity that provides workers' compensation insurance to thousands of Arizona businesses.
How golden was he? A top State Fund manager once said, out of the blue, that he wanted his daughter to marry someone like Heeb. Heeb was hired into the State Fund's payroll audit department in 1990. From there, he was quickly promoted into the loss-prevention department, where he helped advise businesses on improving worker safety. He also gave orientation presentations for new State Fund employees.
It is easy to understand why Heeb might be used in orientation programs. He's young--only 30--photogenic and fit, well-spoken yet serious. The overall appearance: just plain wholesome.
He remembers telling the new hires that the State Compensation Fund considered employees "its most important asset."
"I remember saying that at each and every presentation," Heeb says. "And then I found out the truth."
He didn't find it out for a while, though. For a while, he was just a pleasant, well-liked up-and-comer at the State Fund. His performance evaluations were excellent. He was one of six employees named as the top 1 percent of the State Fund work force for 1992. The fund's president, Jerry LeCompte, took those six workers on a trip to San Diego in May 1993 as a reward. As late as the fall of that year, Heeb was receiving glowing performance reviews.
About that time, Heeb began attending meetings. They were voluntary confabs where employees discussed diversity at the compensation fund. And that was when he began to encounter the internal reality of the State Compensation Fund, without really knowing he had done so. It's an odd, nasty reality. Complicated, too. But fascinating, in a sick way.
Now, back in the fall of 1993, Greg Heeb was not fully aware that he was working in the quasi-governmental version of a John Grisham novel. And so he spoke his mind at a couple of diversity meetings. His girlfriend, who worked in another department at the State Fund, had encountered a problem with a personal-leave request. Heeb advocated changes in the fund's leave policies. Apparently, this rankled the supervisor who had handled the girlfriend's leave request. Two other higher-ups at the State Fund told Heeb they thought he was out of line in advocating the changes in leave policy.
Heeb still doesn't think he said anything untoward about the supervisor, Alesia Martin, then administrator of the fund's training, education and communications department. But let's not quibble. Let's suggest, for the sake of argument, that Heeb presented his proposal harshly, that he had hidden motives, that he wanted to show up Martin.
Since when is indirectly criticizing a supervisor who is not in the room an offense that should be punished by mandatory psychiatric examination?
Since now. At least, that's what the State Compensation Fund thinks.
The events of Greg Heeb's subsequent tenure at the State Compensation Fund are as tangled with characters and intrigue as the plot for any potboiler novel. As you might guess, that plot now includes a lawsuit, filed by Heeb against the State Fund. Heeb claims State Fund managers forced him out of his job. The fund has yet to file a detailed response, and the fund's general counsel says he has advised fund officials not to comment for the time being. Martin, who has left the fund for work at a computer firm, did not return my phone calls last week.
From court documents, sworn depositions of fund employees and interviews, however, at least the outline of this odd, serpentine drama can be pieced together. And I must say that in my 15 years in journalism, I have never seen anything to match the viciousness of this State Comp Fund business. That business picked up steam during the spring of 1994, when Greg Heeb did something he acknowledges was not very smart. A co-worker had put a Mardi Gras poster on the wall. Heeb stuck a picture of Alesia Martin's face on a voodoo doll in the poster. He says there were often cartoons and posters around, and employees often defaced them in funny ways. It was months after the diversity meeting flap, which had not seemed like all that big a flap, anyway. The poster wasn't in a highly traveled area. It wasn't in Martin's department.
