Long before my wife, Holly Tarry, filed a harassment complaint that contributed to Rep. Steve Lebsock’s expulsion from the Colorado legislature in 2

Opinion: My Colorado engineering firm was toxic…

submited by

Style Pass

2021-06-14 22:30:03

Long before my wife, Holly Tarry, filed a harassment complaint that contributed to Rep. Steve Lebsock’s expulsion from the Colorado legislature in 2018, I was coming home with jaw-dropping stories of the discrimination and harassment women experienced at my workplace, JR Engineering.

After 18 years of witnessing how harassers are protected in the home construction industry, I joined the fight this year to pass the POWR Act. The bill, put forward by Sens. Faith Winter and Brittany Pettersen would have modernized Colorado’s outdated workplace discrimination laws. Senate Bill 176 passed the Colorado Senate but was defeated in a House committee.

My journey to understand how toxic my workplace was for women closely mimicked the evolution of my marriage, and of my wife’s realization that the treatment she received at the Colorado Capitol as a lobbyist was not acceptable.

At the beginning of my tenure, one of my colleagues was sending degrading pornographic emails to the members of the boys club, which included the top boss, Aaron Clutter, and myself. I asked him to stop sending them to me and others in the group piled on, aware that the behavior represented a legal liability. I always wondered how long it would have gone on if I hadn’t said anything.