Case Study Analysis: Government Fire Brigade Training FacilityIn this case, a large engineering consultancy firm was contracted by the government to execute civil engineering work to install equipment that would later be used to train firefighters. Before actual work began on site, Donald J. Giffels, president of the consulting firm, quickly realized, through careful observation, that there was considerable ambiguity in how critical safety systems should be designed . In this situation, what are the ethical issues the consulting firm faces in accepting such a contract from the government? What is the optimal strategy for responding to what Donald J. Giffels has identified as an unacceptable lack of security? These two important issues are discussed in more detail and below is a conclusion on noteworthy facts related to this case. The training facility for which the Giffels company had been contracted to carry out civil engineering work had recently switched from using jet fuel to liquid propane to prevent soil contamination. While this was a solution to environmental concerns, it created new problems that Giffels found had not been addressed due to the lack of design analysis for any safety system. Even though his company was only required to do civil engineering work, Giffels concluded that there was an unacceptable risk to firefighters who would be using the facility with the unresolved problems, so he began contacting other companies with experience managing of similar contractual projects, with a view to exercising due care to ensure that they could improve safety. The training facility met the minimum legal requirements, but Giffels believed that he would be shirking the responsibility his company has to the public by not calling... on paper... the company anticipated the significant likelihood of harm to firefighters using the training facility and made efforts to communicate the risks identified to the government organization awarding the contract. Communication was essential in persuading the government to address safety issues because the site met statutory requirements, reducing the perception of risk, and the design choice to replace jet fuel with liquid propane created the unintended consequence of an increase in risk that might otherwise have gone unnoticed if not for the actions of Giffels' consulting firm. Giffels' strategy of persisting in refusing to complete the contract and highlighting the significant risk discovered by his company proved successful when dealing with a client who initially appeared to have adopted a minimalist approach while meeting minimum legal requirements.