Office dA. D'oh!

[Lurker]

http://www.boston.com/business/arti...of_prestigious_hub_architecture_firm_at_odds/

The dispute between Nader Tehrani and Monica Ponce de Leon stems from his 2003 decision to give her a 51 percent ownership share in Office dA. She says her majority status gave her the authority to lock him out of the South End building.

As one of the Boston.com posters commented:

"good - these scumbags want to play cute and milk the MWBE system it should end like this for them. Academic designers, dependent on the public tit for their jobs in the classroom and real world. Wonder what Fast Company would think of them now."

Exactly.

 

[Ron Newman]

what's MWBE?

(By the way, MIT is a private university, not public.)

 

[Lurker]

Minority and Women's Business Enterprise

The wonderful world of government sponsored discrimination, favoritism, and tax breaks.

While they might have talent in the creation of architecture, they are ETHICALLY BANKRUPT CHEATERS when it comes to business practices and applying for government sponsored research grants.

 

[Pierce]

Can you provide some evidence to your cheaters claim? What are Tehrani's and Ponce de Leon's track records on research grants? I know them both and even I don't know that, curious what your info is.

Also, isn't this whole pickle precisely because they didn't cheat? Cheating would be making someone majority owner in name but having complex but possible contractual agreements that gave full power to the minority owner. In their case, Monica actually became majority owner, and the question is over what powers are in her 1%. Also know there are other complexities at work here that are not being reported, it's not so straightforward.

If you want to gripe about them getting MBE/WBE status (I always figured as an arab american, first generation immigrant Nader should get MBE status anyway) take that up with the governmental authorities who instituted and maintain it. dA didn't write the rules, they just played by them. I'm fairly certain that the drafters would look at a situation of a woman getting promoted to majority ownership in order to get WBE credit a sign that the program is working.

 

[Lurker]

In case you hadn't noticed I always take issue with people that game the system or worse building codes.

Office dA as incorporated was a 50/50 venture. Both Tehrani and Ponce de Leon qualify for MWBE by being immigrants, however Monica curries even more bonuses by being female on top of it. The issue is that Office dA realized it would be advantageous to muck around with the company organization and game both the tax code and gain a further advantage in competing for government projects.

Tehrani was more than happy to play along until he somehow pissed off Monica. Now that lawyers are involved, there's publication of spat, and it's obvious that the company was gaming the tax code and competition process, it doesn't make office dA look too good.

If I were a competitor I'd be absolutely furious that a company got bonus points for wiggling around ownership rules in competitions for projects. Not to mention upset that one company based on what's tantamount to fraud was probably getting additional tax credits.

Quite honestly it's shameful that these two epitomes of backstabbing careerists are deans of schools. Do we really want the next generation of architects learning that the best way to get ahead is to game everything and be ready to throw your closest friends and business partners under the bus as soon as it is advantageous to do so?

 

[statler]

Yes, but if you were a competitor who didn't qualify for MBE/WBE status you would, by birthright, already have an institutional advantage.
Why do so many people like to pretend that advantage just doesn't exist?

 

[Lurker]

You mean to tell me that foreign ivy league educated architects are somehow disadvantaged compared to the random American born 'birthright' male that had slug through some lower tier architecture school? How come I never experienced any discrimination in the workplace as an ivy league educated immigrant?

My biggest gripe is that this is an established firm with significant renown taking advantage of a program meant to help disenfranchised small start-up businesses.