Suit Says Complaints Over Parts Cost Worker His Job

A former quality-control supervisor for a high-tech firm in Newbury Park filed suit Monday alleging he was fired because he complained that the company used parts that did not meet Defense Department standards.

Richard Vargeson of Camarillo refused to falsify documentation of defective parts that Symetrics Inc. supplied to defense contractors, according to the suit filed in Ventura County Superior Court.

Symetrics Inc. makes couplings used in such things as brake lines in airplanes, company officials said. Northrop and Raytheon are among its customers, company officials said.

Symetrics Vice President Dale Patty discounted the allegations with a laugh. “That’s ridiculous,” Patty said. “It just isn’t true.”

He said Vargeson was one of many people laid off by the company in February.

Patty refused to comment further on the allegations because he had not yet seen the suit, which names the company, Patty and Symetrics President John Calvin.

Vargeson said he had not yet notified authorities of the allegations.

“I tried to change the company from the inside, and they didn’t want to change,” he said. “Now I’m going to change it from the outside.”

Allegations of fraudulent testing are normally investigated jointly by the FBI, involved military agencies and the Defense Criminal Investigative Services, said Gary Auer, who heads the Ventura County office of the FBI.

Vargeson said he was the only supervisor among the 24 people who were laid off and that company officials let him go because he constantly pointed out problems with procedures.

“They basically got tired of me complaining all the time,” he said.

Vargeson said the company made its own metal parts to be used in the couplings. However, he said that when the parts did not meet the specifications set by customers, Symetrics employees did not throw them out or notify the customers.

Instead, they used them, said Vargeson, who was employed at the company for 10 years. “It’s a routine business practice that they do.”

Such inferior parts might cause units to fail, which could lead to problems such as losing hydraulic pressure in brake lines or oil pressure in the engine of an airplane, Vargeson said.