Whistleblower: Lockheed Martin Awarded Bonuses Based on Race

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The company allegedly required managers to reward employees “on the basis of their skin color alone and contrary to documented performance.”

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The story began in December 2022, when the whistleblower was preparing recommendations for the aeronautics division’s year-end bonuses.

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Santiago Bulnes, a vice president who now leads engineering on Lockheed’s F-35 program, wrote an email to the whistleblower. “I got a call from [human resources director] La Wanda [Moorer] last night regarding diversity stats on comp adder,” Bulnes, who did not respond to a request for comment, said. “They took a run at getting your few approved and we’re told that we need to fit in the box. I asked her to send you the list of diversity names to simplify the task of finding the best in the group.”

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Next, our source claims, officials in Lockheed’s human resources department made the demand explicit. One communication instructed the whistleblower to add more than a dozen minorities to the list and recommended removing an equal number of “non-minority” employees. The implication was clear—“increasing POC for Comp Adder will result in removing equal count of non-minority”—and the instructions were deliberate, recommending specific race swaps by manager. For example, for one team, human resources officials instructed the whistleblower to “increase POC 4 and decrease non-minority 4.”

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The whistleblower tried to protest this decision and filed an ethics complaint, arguing that the policy was unethical and could expose the company to legal liability, but management insisted. “Our HR counsel told me that while this may present business risk, it was the ‘less[e]r of two evils.’”

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