Sorry, no creativity points for Kevin Hostler.   At the wee hours of the morning, on a Wednesday, for no particular reason, the CEO of Alyeska Pipeline decided he needed to return to Houston to ”spend more time with his family.”  Houston… now he’s your problem.  Of course, it’s an absolute coincidence that Jason Leopold of Truthout  just happened to write a 5000-word expose that blew Alyeska and BP out of the water the day before. Now if we could only figure out a way to literally blow BP out of the water…

Just between us, there are rumors of secret Snoopy dances at Alyeska today.

Here’s a fleshed-out update from Leopold. Buy that man a beer, I say.

By Jason Leopold

Kevin Hostler, the chief executive officer of Alyeska Pipeline, informed company employees at the company Wednesday morning that he “plans to retire to Houston and to spend time with his family.”

The announcement comes one day after Truthout published an extensive investigative report that was highly critical of his leadership of the company and revealed details of alleged mismanagement based on information obtained from senior Alyeska officials and hundreds of pages of internal documents.

Over the past several months, Alyeska Pipeline and Hostler have been under intense scrutiny by a Congressional oversight committee and an independent investigator, who has been probing explosive allegations leveled by managers that severe cost-cutting efforts could put the integrity of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) at risk.

Last week, as Truthout first reported, Hostler was called into Washington for the second time in a month to meet with staffers from Rep. Bart Stupak’s office. Stupak (D-Michigan) is the chairman of the House Energy Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

The meeting focused on the circumstances behind several mishaps, including a recent oil spill that took place at one of Alyeska’s pump stations on the North Slope, which forced the company to shut down TAPS for more than three days in May, and the loss of communication connections used to control pumps and valves at the northern end of pipeline system that also forced its temporary closure.

Staffers also queried Hostler about the findings of Thebaud’s investigation. The probe was sparked in February after some Alyeska managers anonymously filed complaints with BP’s Office of the Ombudsman about a number of issues, including failures to address matters concerning safety and maintenance and a controversial decision Hostler made last year to relocate about 30 safety and integrity management engineers from Fairbanks to Anchorage, Alaska – hundreds of miles away from the pipeline.

TAPS transports crude oil from production fields in Prudhoe Bay to Valdez for deepwater tanker loading. It moves anywhere from 600,000 to 700,000 barrels of oil per day, which represents approximately 15 percent of US crude oil production.

In a three-page “talking points & timeline memo” distributed to employees Wednesday morning, Hostler acknowledged that Thebaud’s probe, as first disclosed by Truthout “could potentially create a distraction.”

A copy of Thebaud’s report will not be shared with employees, the talking points memo states, “due to the need to preserve the confidentiality of open work environment investigations.”

The memo further added that “Alyeska management does not have the original report. A modified version of the report that did not include names of individual details was provided to Hostler.”

Hostler’s management style has been criticized by dozens of employees. According to a copy of a confidential employee work survey obtained by Truthout, Hostler was described as “a narcissistic despot who will be remembered for his management style of intimidation and fear.”

“At the senior management level, [Hostler] has made a mockery of the [Open Work Environment] system by neutering our VPs and Directors who are openly afraid to disagree with his initiatives, even when it is detrimental to TAPS,” says a copy of the survey.

Other surveys provided to Truthout contained similar descriptions of Hostler.

Alyeska summarized the report’s findings to employees in a company-wide email distributed June 30.

“Most of the concerns were not substantiated,” says the email sent to employees, obtained by Truthout. “Specifically, the concerns about safety, integrity and environmental protection were not substantiated.”

However, “the investigation did conclude that there are opportunities to improve the Open Work Environment,” says the email signed by TAPS owners Charles J. Coulson of BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., Bij Agarwai of ConocoPhillips Transportation Alaska Inc., Gary Pruessing of ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, Michelle West of Koch Alaska Pipeline Company and Jim Avioli of Unocal Pipeline Company. “This is consistent with the recent employee survey that demonstrated there has been a reduction in employee comfort in reporting concerns to senior management.”

Alyeska spokeswoman Michelle Egan said the company’s “Business Practices/Employee Concerns program (which recently merged with our Compliance and Ethics Group) will develop a plan for enhancing the open work environment” to deal with issues of intimidation and fear.

Alyeska employees told Truthout that the announcement about Hostler’s exit was made during a meeting this morning. According a company-wide email obtained by Truthout, Hostler will exit the company September 30. The announcement said “Hostler previously told employees he planned to leave the company at the end of 2010.”

“Retiring at the end of September is good for TAPS and allows enough time for a proper transition,” Hostler said in an email distributed to Alyeska employees on Wednesday. “Our executive team and other Alyeska leaders have worked toward developing leadership skills so that any transition in the organization is seamless.

“Our core values are shared and practiced at all levels of TAPS and while a CEO helps set expectations, it is the workforce that delivers performance. I am proud of the many achievements and improvements we have seen on TAPS since I came on board in 2005, and I am confident that the new CEO will continue to work to prepare Alyeska for a strong future.”

A successor to Hoslter has not been named.

BP is the largest shareholder of Alyeska and Hostler is a BP executive “on loan” to the company. BP exerts significant control and influence over the way Alyeska is operated, senior BP and Alyeska officials said.

Prior to being named chief executive of Alyeska, Hostler spent 27 years with BP, most recently as senior vice president of BP’s global human resources organization. Before that, Hostler was head of BP’s subsidiary in Colombia.