After graduating in chemistry at Liverpool University, UK in 1944, Trevor Kletz joined Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) and spent eight years in research, sixteen in production management and the last fourteen as process safety adviser to the Petrochemicals Division. In 1978 he was appointed an Industrial (part-time) Professor at Loughborough University, UK. On retiring from ICI in 1982, he joined the University full-time; in 1986 he became a visiting fellow and is now a visiting professor. He is also an adjunct professor at the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University.
Trevor has written ten books and many papers on loss prevention and process safety, and the 5th edition of his best-selling book, What Went Wrong?, was published in 2009. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Chemical Engineers, the Royal Society of Chemistry (all UK) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1997.