(55k) The Long and Winding Road to Here

This paper covers my career path, which began when I graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 2011 up to the present day as a process safety consultant with Sigma-HSE. To explore how each step lead me closer to a career focused on the application of process safety in a large variety of industries we’ll look at each position I’ve held over the last twelve plus years and how they’ve pushed me towards a focus on the protection of people and the environment from hazardous situations. Specific situations and their impact on myself and others will be explored in an effort to demonstrate the real-world consequences of unlikely events occurring. Over the course of my career, I’ve held a variety of positions working for a range of companies including a large multi-national Engineering, Procurement, and Construction firm, a regional utility company, a multi-national architecture, engineering, and consultancy firm, a multinational technology company that specializes in glass, ceramics, and associated materials and technologies, and a consulting firm. With each new role and company, I’ve gained experience that’s pushed me towards a focus on process safety. The more involved with process safety I’ve become the more value I’ve seen in its implementation and follow through in everything from small scale skid-based processes to large multi-unit oil and gas facilities. Out of school my career goal was to become a commissioning and start-up engineer in the Oil and Gas industry. Once I reached that position, I saw the opportunities and benefits that would be available from applying the skills obtained from an education in chemical engineering and from being a field engineer to the process safety applications. As I moved forward from there, I was able to leverage my background to work hand in hand with operations and maintenance personnel to ensure that process safety solutions that were implemented were feasible and not paperwork exercises that wouldn’t be followed in the field.