Impact of the well-publicized ethical lapse

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Timothy J. Noonan, former COO, interim CEO and member of the board of directors at Rite Aid Corp., spoke to a recent meeting of the Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership about his experiences during a legal and ethical crisis at the company from 1999-2000. Though he offered insights on his behavior, he did not offer excuses or shift blame. Rather, he presented a frank account of an ethical lapse that he wished he had avoided.
As Jim Balassone, executive-in-residence at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, noted in his introduction, "Tim and I are the same age, with similar backgrounds and education. Perhaps the only difference is that I went to work for a company where it was easy to be ethical and Tim went to work for Rite Aid. I'd like to think that I would have acted differently or escaped some of the traps Tim will talk about—I would like to think that, but I'm far from sure that would be true."
Noonan outlined his purpose by saying, "I'm here today to spend a little bit of time with you to talk about the crisis at Rite Aid. It could have been your company, your associations. It could be anyone's. It was a real crisis. And I hope it's the kind of crisis that none of you ever get yourself caught up in," he said. "I made some bad decisions, but ultimately, you've got to make some right decisions. I'm no different than you. I want you to understand that this could happen to you, it could happen to anybody."
History of the Rite Aid Crisis
Alex Grass founded Rite Aid, a mom-and-pop health and beauty aids store, in Scranton, Pa., in 1962. The company went public in 1968, and by 1995, Grass's son forced him out as CEO. Amid rapid expansion, numerous acquisitions, and costly innovations, Rite Aid got involved in a financial crisis resulting in a $1.6 billion restatement, shareholder lawsuits, and ultimately, indictments and convictions of officers of the company. Noonan himself ...