Enron Whistleblower to Speak at Penn State Dickinson School of Law

Carlisle, PA (October 19, 2005) — The former Enron Corporation vice president credited with drawing attention to accounting problems prior to the company’s collapse will present “Ethics after Enron” on Tuesday, November 8 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Café Per Se of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, 150 South College Street, Carlisle. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

In her presentation, Sherron Watkins will focus on what went wrong at Enron, how similar situations can be avoided and the importance of ethical leadership. She will also discuss the system that equity markets rely on to function properly. The event is being sponsored by the law school’s Speakers Trust, Dickinson Democrats, Jewish Law Students Association, Joint Degree Law Students Association, Penn State Law Review, Republican Council, Sports, Entertainment and Art Law Society, and the Women’s Law Caucus. A reception will follow.

Watkins first alerted Enron Chief Executive Officer Ken Lay to the company’s accounting irregularities in August 2001 and warned that Enron “might implode in a wave of accounting scandals.” She later testified before House and Senate congressional committees investigating the internal workings, and subsequent demise, of Enron. Watkins is co-author, along with prize-winning journalist Mimi Swartz, of Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron published in March 2003.

Watkins has garnered national praise for her efforts to uphold ethics in the workplace, including being named along with Coleen Rowley of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom as Time magazine’s 2002 Persons of the Year. Time honored the women for “believing—really believing—that the truth is one thing that must not be moved off the books, and for stepping in to make sure that it wasn't…” Time recognized that “…as whistle-blowers, these three people became fail-safe systems that did not fail.”

Additional honors include Court TV’s Scales of Justice Award and Everyday Hero’s Award, the Women Mean Business Award from the Business and Professional Women/USA Organization, and the 2003 Women of the Year Award by Houston Baptist University. Glamour magazine named Watkins one of its 2002 Women of the Year, and Barbara Walters identified her as one of the Ten Most Fascinating People of 2002. In 2003, the Women’s Economic Round Table honored Watkins with the Rolfe Award for Educating the Public about Business and Finance, and the National Academy of Management presented her with its Distinguished Executive Award.

Prior to joining Enron in 1993, Watkins worked for three years as the portfolio manager of MG Trade Finance Corporation in New York and for eight years in the auditing group of Arthur Anderson’s New York and Houston offices.

For more information on Watkins’ presentation, contact the law school’s communications office at (717) 240-5217.