When gunshots rip apart the fabric of a workplace, no headline, radio bulletin or cable news clip can adequately capture the life-altering experience of someone “going postal.”
Kathleen McComber knows.
She lived through it. And although never in immediate danger, her work in the aftermath of the 2000 shootings at the Edgewater Technology Co. in suburban Boston is guiding companies throughout the United States to better prepare for the ultimate workplace violence incident.
The day after Christmas 2000, McComber’s planned week of vacation was shattered by a call suggesting she tune in to CNN. “I think it’s your company they’re talking about,” her father said. She did, and it was.
Michael McDermott, a longtime Edgewater employee, had shot and killed seven co-workers that morning, then calmly waited in the reception area to be captured by police. Staring at her home television, McComber wondered, “What am I going to do?”
What would you do?
As corporate human resources director for Edgewater, based in Fayetteville, Ark., McComber had to act fast – very fast.
Top managers told her they wanted her in Boston now. But she wasn’t going anywhere soon. She was housebound, and the airports in Little Rock and nearby Fayetteville that Monday were closed due to a severe snow and ice storm that struck Christmas Eve.
“He’s killed seven of our employees,” her boss told her by telephone, “and we need a plan.”
The company had a disaster plan all right. But it was geared to potential local disruptions – tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or fire. A shooting had never crossed anyone’s mind, whether in Arkansas or the company’s other locations, like Wakefield. Besides, it was locked up in a safe at work.
McComber began working the phone and the Internet. Through professional contacts and colleagues, she was led to such organizations as the Institute for Crisis Management, which handles crisis media relations and the Employee Assistance Program Association, which gathers a cadre of specially trained counselors for companies facing such disasters. Corporate neighbor Wal-Mart offered the services of a human resource crisis management company.
Confident, she called her bosses that night with her plan. Get Cheryl Troy, the HR director at Wakefield, on the phone and, “I’ll talk her through what to do,” she said. “Are you sitting down?” they asked. Troy was the first of the seven killed. “We don’t have her anymore; you’re it.”
The shootings suddenly became chillingly personal to McComber.
While top executives, legal and risk managers began contacting victims’ families, the media and counseling specialists converged on Wakefield, where McComber joined them the next evening.
First, they reviewed. A week prior to the shooting, McDermott was told by Troy that the IRS was garnishing his wages to pay back taxes. He reacted angrily, imploring her “to do something.” He asked the same of the accounting department. When told the company had no choice but to comply, he wailed, “I’ll never get a way from them (the IRS).”
Two hours after starting work, Troy noticed McDermott walking toward her near the reception desk. “Hey, Mukko (his nickname), what are you doing here today (the day after Christmas)?”
“I’m here to take care of HR and accounting,” he said, pulliing an AK-47 from a gym bag and shooting her and the receptionist, then walking down the hall to accounting, where he executed five employees hiding under their desks.
With McComber pitching in though still snowbound in Little Rock, they hired a crisis team of HR, media and counseling specialists who called the surviving 150 employees Monday night. They also established a telephone hot line to deliver updated crisis information. A rented Boston office was commandeered to serve as a crisis center. Back in Fayetteville, the corporate crisis team and on-site team debriefed each other every night of the crisis.
Employee counseling began Thursday morning. They were divided into groups as to their point of reference – the 100 employees who were not present during the shooting (having separate guilt issues), those who fled the building and those who did not.
Other important aftermath decisions that proved correct included assigning a top executive to communicate with each surviving family, hiring a company specializing in cleaning up the office before employees returned to work the Tuesday following New Year’s Day, and, in addition to employees attending the seven funerals, holding a company-only memorial service on site for their fallen colleagues.
The biggest lesson learned by McComber: Have a company disaster plan that addresses violence and its aftermath within reach, ready to implement.
“I never thought this would happen,” McComber told her human resources colleagues at a business conference. “It could happen to you tomorrow.”
Write Eric Zoeckler at The Herald, P.O. Box 930, Everett, WA 98206 or e-mail mrscribe@aol.com
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
