Sing it with me y’all
Matt Pitzarella “deliberately falsified” his education but that’s okay with David Poole because lying and skirting around the truth seems to be ingrained in the Range Resources corporate culture or Family.
Range Resources officials said Wednesday they knew Pitzarella didn’t earn his master’s degree.
“I was aware of the accusation that was made on a blog site to that effect. And once it was brought to my attention, I did what I would have done in any situation where we have an employee accused of doing something like that,” said Range general counsel David Poole. “What I determined is that Matt has not made that statement. What has happened here are a couple of published third-party references to (Pitzarella) that says he has earned a master’s degree.” Times on Line
Of course Pitzarella never finished the ethics course. Duh! That’s obvious.
In case you haven’t noticed, Dear Readers, the fracking mafia is now using the Karl Rove Orwellian tactic of attacking the opposition on their own weakest points. For example: saying natgas is cleaning up our air and Steve Everley saying fracking is making people healthier.
The funniest part of the Times on Line article is where Pitzarella goes full on Orwellian.
“Anywhere else that I’ve ever referenced that have always included that I attended the program but never stated that I completed it, he said. “My corporate bios always make that very, very clear. There’s no point in having ambiguity on that subject.”
Yeah, Matt, we wouldn’t want there to be any “ambiguity on that subject” so that’s why you quickly corrected all the news articles and sources where it was written that you had a master’s degree. OH WAIT!
But the assumed degree has been mentioned in various other media coverage of himself — such as a 2009 feature on PopCityMedia.com and another that ran in Washington County’s Observer Reporter newspaper last summer.
Another lengthy profile written early last year in his alma mater’s publication, the Cal Times, also touted the assumed master’s of science in leadership and business ethics.
Let me quickly remember just a very few times where Pitzarella “deliberately falsified” something.
- Statement about Steve Lipsky’s flaming hose. The really outrageous thing about this lie is that Range Resources, the EPA and the Texas Railroad Commission ALL took their gas samples for testing from the hose that was hooked up to the well head vent (the same hose in the video) so the gas would vent away from the well. So Range and the regulators knew it was impossible for water to be coming from that hose. More on that later.
- Statement that Range never intended to gag the two young Hallowich children. BTW, Dear Readers, the children are still gagged.
- The price that Range paid for the Hallowich home is, in my book, a lie but some may say more of a dodge.
- The Psyops story is one time when Pitzarella couldn’t seem to keep his lies straight. I counted three different versions but there could be more.
UPDATE: I forgot about this: Did Range Resources VP operations lie under oath?
In the love letter below, you can see, clearly, that Range Resources expects public statements to be truthful. They have very high standards for such things when it comes to others but they are unable to uphold this standard in their own Family.
Cease and desist from Range Resources
Here is an early Valentine from me to Range Resources.
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I oppose how the industry says natural gas is cleaner…but fails to point out that is ONLY at the burning of NG in relation to the other nasty fossil fuels and it really lies by omission in how massuvely dirty NG is in the extracting, processing, and distribution not even visiting the global warming impact of all the cradle to grave methane losses overall.
“Pitzarella has listed attendance in a master’s of science in leadership and business ethics program at Duquesne University on his LinkedIn page. It does not specifically say he graduated from the program, although it does list years attended as 2003-05.”
… ‘He attended from the spring of 2004 through fall 2004 in the master of science in leadership and business ethics program,’ said Tammy Ewin, director of communications at the school.”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest he didn’t finish the “remember when” program either.
“‘Anywhere else that I’ve ever referenced that have always included that I attended the program but never stated that I completed it,'”
Anywhere ELSE? Why not anywhere, period? Why stray from the truth? New mantra?
“Range Resources officials said Wednesday they knew Pitzarella didn’t earn his master’s degree.”
But didn’t seem to mind the lies being published even though “Range and its employees have the right to expect public statements about Range and its activities to be truthful?”
“What I determined is that Matt has not made that statement. What has happened here are a couple of published third-party references to (Pitzarella) that says he has earned a master’s degree.”
So has Range sent a cease and desist letter? When do they start deposing those “third-parties?”
That’s just how they roll.
Ya, here’s another one where it looks like they may have been absent from the “I spy with my little eye” and “math with numbers” program.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngFXfiOtj90
I think we might have seen that coming. I suspected soon as the news broke that Ol’ Pitz was going to worm his way out of this. It doesn’t surprise me that the one person who came to Pitz’s aid is probably the one person who has serious credibility issues himself. What surprises me isn’t that Pitz lied, what surprises me is that he lied about something so easily verified. If I’m not mistaken, this all unraveled over a simple phone call to the registrar’s office.
Pitz owns this. LinkedIN, for those who may not be familiar, is not just another ‘social media’ website; It is essentially your online resume, listing your accomplishments, skills, employment history, credentials and of course, education. No one puts this together for you, you put it all together yourself. No one checks it for accuracy before being posted. If you’re on LinkedIN, I can guarantee your future employer, recruiters, those interested in networking are going to look at your profile.
One would think that if your’re a busy mouthpiece for a big corporation that is always having to deny environmental disasters and preventing certain children, under the threat of legal action from so much as speaking the word ‘fracking’ that you hire someone else to put your profile together, you should check it for accuracy. Because it’s your name and your face and, well, your ass on the line.
I sure hope Pitz plans on being at Range for some time to come, because this falsification might be okay with his employers, it most certainly won’t be okay with many others. On second thought, it might be okay with any number of other ethics challenged energy companies.
There are far too many dirty secrets. The family has to protect the family for the sake of the family.
I was asked if this is satire. Sadly, it’s not.