Ever wonder where Cleveland’s printers come from? Well, you’d be surprised to find out that they were all coordinated by a company run by Doug Pitassi, currently a member of the local cover band The Denominators, a previous teacher at Centennial High School, and now a known sex offender.
Pitassi—until his recent indefinite leave on Oct. 2—was the CEO of Pacific Office Automation (POA), an office technologies mainstay, profiting almost $500 million annually. The company is based in Beaverton with offices across the western United States. As one of Oregon’s largest privately-held companies, they hold large advertising deals with sports teams such as the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Mariners, and the Portland Trail Blazers.
As the final administrator concerning every aspect of POA, Pitassi extended his own power to an unprofessional extent. Aside from establishing a toxic, high-pressure sales culture to promoting drug and alcohol use within the office buildings, Pitassi has been sued by five former employees based on sexual assault and harassment.
Three of these former employees reached financial settlements with Pitassi and the company, the only disclosed settlement being for $1.85 million with Colin McCarthy. The 2022 settlement bears the signatures of both Pitassi and the company’s Chief Financial Officer Brooks Newsom.
According to the lawsuit, McCarthy condemned Pitassi for touching him without consent, masturbating in front of him, and attempting to have sex with him. Many of these occasions were at work-related events and on personal time, often while McCarthy was under the influence of alcohol.
Last year after withdrawing money from the settlement, McCarthy threw a total of $250,000 out of his car window onto a freeway, which led to several 911 calls and a police response.
With all of his misconduct in the workplace, you may be surprised to find out that Pitassi, prior to POA, worked at a high school. Pitassi was a science and percussion teacher as well as the water polo coach at Gresham’s Centennial High School in the 1980s. Many students saw him as a personable community member, and would have never expected him to conduct a misdemeanor. Yet, Pitassi pled guilty to fondling and exposing himself to two of his students after getting fired in 1987. His probation from the charges led to him getting hired at POA in 1989 as a sales manager.
Portland Public Schools currently has one contract with POA for copiers/printers in the district (determined based on the copies that are run on the copiers/printers in all of PPS). According to Don Wolff, chief technology officer within PPS, the average yearly cost since 2019 has been slightly below $580,000 district-wide. There are a total of 781 copiers/printers under this contract with the top five sites being the Prophet Education Center (50), Franklin HS (29), Grant HS (29), McDaniel HS (24), and Ida B. Wells HS (22). One of these printers is even used by The Clarion. This year there is an additional agreement with POA for specialized printing due to the closure of the PPS Print Shop.
As many previous offenses come to light, PPS must decide if this is a suitable company to support throughout the district.
The Clarion requested comment from the district about the business agreement with Pacific Office Automation but have not heard back as of press time.
