Audit report docks ports chief's tenure.

• Author: Maley, Frank
• Position: Tar Heel Tattler

Maybe something like this has happened to you. A business contact offers you tickets for a major sporting event, say, college football's Gator Bowl. He encourages you to bring the family. You think it might be a chance to discuss business so you go to your boss and get approval for the trip. Your car is in the shop, so you take the company car. You go to a pregame reception at your contact's tent, watch the game and spend quality time with your kids. You charge lodging and some meals to your employer's credit card. Afterward, you realize little business was conducted, so you go to your company's chief financial officer and pay back some of the cost.

That's what Erik Stromberg did as CEO of the State Ports Authority in January 2003. And it helped lose him his $157,500-a-year job. The authority's board voted 6-4 in March to ask for his resignation after a state auditor's report questioned the portion of the tab the authority paid, estimated at $718.48. It also asked why he got a $6,000-a-year car allowance even though he had a state-owned car and questioned $10,991 of personal items other employees had charged on authority credit cards.

Ports Chairman Dick Futrell says the auditor's report wasn't the only strike against Stromberg--just the final one. After he was convicted of driving while impaired (in his own car) in November, the board...