Former Naper Settlement historian Bryan Ogg had no disciplinary problems for four of the last five years he worked for the city of Naperville-funded history museum, personnel records obtained by the Naperville Sun show.
But his last year was a rockier one, with several notes summarizing actions found questionable by administrators included in his file and characterizing his behavior as “volatile” and “combative.”
What remains in dispute is whether Ogg was illegally fired from his position as the Settlement’s curator of research because he was writing a book on Naperville history, a violation of his First Amendment rights his lawyer contends, or whether he chose the book over his job and resigned, as his former employers say.
According to his employment records, Ogg was hired by the Settlement in July 2004 and had no conflicts with his employer between 2012 and April 2016. He received 2 percent merit raises in 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017, a $500 bonus in May 2012 and an undated customer service award sometime between 2012 and 2014.
Things changed in April 2016, when two statements — one from a co-worker and the other from a superior — and meeting notes taken by his immediate supervisor were placed in his personnel file.
In September 2016, Settlement President/CEO Rena Tamayo-Calabrese hired executive coach Steve Larrick to conduct a “360 review” of Ogg in which he was to seek feedback from Ogg’s subordinates, colleagues and supervisors.
Larrick sent a request for information via email to eight employees, but the review was never completed because “there was a lack of response due to communication issues at Naper Settlement,” he said.
Tamayo-Calabrese declined to comment on Ogg’s personnel record and emphasized that no performance evaluation was conducted.
“Naper Settlement did not conduct a 360 review,” Tamayo-Calabrese said via email.
Ogg did not return a call for comment, and his attorney, Chuck Corrigan, said via email that his only comment was, “There is nothing new to report at this time.”
Peggy Frank, president/CEO of the Settlement until her retirement in 2013, declined to comment on Ogg’s job performance while she was there or the situation resulting in his departure.
The 2016 statements in Ogg’s file were written on April 7 by Harriet Pistorio, chief operating officer, in reference to a Jan. 26 incident and on April 11 by Dawn Hartman, the then-director of marketing, in regards to a poem that was to be published in the Settlement’s Treasures magazine.
In her letter, Hartman documented a situation with Ogg that started on March 1, 2016, when he told her he was angered by the difficulty he was having in getting a poem written by Sybil Dunbar — a descendent of Naperville’s first African-American resident, also named Sybil Dunbar — included in the magazine, of which Hartman was the managing editor. He told her no one wanted to use it, including one supervisor whom he referred to as a “racist.”
The poem was eventually included, but Ogg again became angered on March 28, 2016, when he saw the poem was presented in a two-column format rather than the one column he requested, Hartman wrote.
He went to one of the magazine designers, Hartman wrote, and told her, “it was a ‘terrible design’ and the work was crappy. He said breaking the poem into two columns was ‘racist.'”
The incident occurred less than two months after a confrontation Ogg reportedly had with Pistorio, who wrote a statement on April 7 documenting her experience with Ogg on Jan. 26.
Ogg came into her office because he was angered that Pistorio had canceled an appearance Dunbar was to make at the Settlement when it was learned Dunbar was unavailable on the scheduled date, Pistorio wrote. Ogg told her the date of the event should have been changed to accommodate Dunbar’s schedule, she said.
“Bryan then stood up, shaking his finger at me and stated, ‘I will use everything in my power to see that everyone knows what you are doing and the decisions that you are making,'” she wrote.
Pistorio later briefed Tamayo-Calabrese on the incident, according to her statement.
“My last comment to Rena was that given the behavior, tone and manner to which I was spoken to, that I would no longer meet with Bryan one-on-one but would have another person in attendance during future conversations,” Pistorio wrote.
In notes taken by Settlement chief curator Louise Howard, Ogg’s supervisor, during an April 6 meeting of the curatorial staff, Ogg’s “confrontational behavior” in disagreeing with ideas presented was noted and described as an example of his “volatile temperament.”
Howard also kept notes when Ogg met with her and Tamayo-Calabrese about the book he was writing, which Tamayo-Calabrese learned about at the end of March after being contacted by Ogg’s co-writer on the project.
Tamayo-Calabrese told him at a May 31 meeting that she could not allow him to write a book while employed by the Settlement because the museum wanted to retain its “intellectual property control” for a book or blog that someone there might write in the future.
“Bryan was sorry to hear that and said he was no longer challenged with his work and had plateaued; felt there was no room for advancement for him,” Howard wrote. “He noted he had already signed a contract with the publisher.”
Ogg was given until June 2 to decide if he wanted to stay in his job.
According to Tamayo-Calabrese’s notes, “He told me that he was giving his two-week notice because he had and was committed to (the book) project.”
“I explained that … (he) left me no choice. He never spoke to me about it personally; he signed a (contract) with a 3rd party that I have no control over, and I have no control over the intellectual property,” Tamayo-Calabrese’s notes said. “It was civil. But it is clear to me that he does not comprehend the severity of what he did.”
On June 7, Tamayo-Calabrese emailed Ogg a copy of a letter in which she laid out the circumstances of his resignation.
Ogg’s emailed response said, “I am not resigning.”
Tamayo-Calabrese told the Naperville Sun that Ogg determined his own fate when he chose to write the book over keeping his job.
“In the end, none of it matters since Bryan had already signed the contract without alerting anyone at Naper Settlement and he only admitted it when he could not convince me to allow it,” Tamayo-Calabrese said in an email.
“It was he who put me between a rock and a hard place, and it was I who was blind-sided when I heard the book deal was a fait accompli. Even then, I gave him the opportunity to cure it.”
