This symposium serves as the crossroads for process safety where industry, academia, government agencies and other stakeholders come together to discuss critical issues of research in process safety. Experts from around the world will gather as part of this two and a half-day symposium, to share the latest information on the hottest topics aimed at making the process industry a safer place. The symposium “Beyond Regulatory Compliance, Making Safety Second Nature” is scheduled for Oct. 23-25, 2012 at the Hilton Conference Center and will feature wide variety of safety-related lectures and presentations. In addition, the symposium will feature an exhibit area where companies can demonstrate the latest products, technology and software related to process safety.

Tuesday, October 23 – Keynote Lecture: Chemical Plant Safety & Security – Managing Risk in the 21^st Century

Larry Stanton
Director of Emergency Management
EPA

Lawrence M. Stanton is the Director, Office of Emergency Management, U.S. EPA. Larry directs the Agency’s emergency management program and those elements of the EPA regulatory structure that address disaster preparedness, especially the Risk Management Program (RMP) and the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasures rules (SPCC). Larry joined EPA in August 2011, after eight years with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as the Senior Technical Advisor to the Under Secretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate. Larry advised DHS on matters pertaining to chemicals, the chemical industry, and the safe and secure management of chemicals in the United States.

Larry was a senior member of the corporate staff with BASF, the world’s largest chemical company. Larry led BASF’s NAFTA Region security efforts, with an emphasis on counter-diversion programs and cooperation with federal and international law enforcement efforts. Larry was also the co-leader of BASF’s Global Center of Excellence on Crisis Management and Emergency Response, and was directly responsible for designing BASF’s (NAFTA Region) emergency management structure and for leading BASF’s emergency management operations in the western hemisphere.

Mr. Stanton is a retired US Marine Corps Officer, serving as both an Infantry Officer and Senior Naval Intelligence Officer, on both active duty and in the Reserve for more than 24 years. Mr. Stanton received his Bachelor’s Degree from St. Peter’s College, holds a Certificate in Corporate Security Programs management from Georgetown University, and has completed extensive postgraduate work in public administration and policy at the Pennsylvania State University. He has served as an adjunct faculty member of the Armed Forces Staff College, and he has written and published a number of articles on the subject of security risk analysis and the management of chemical risks in the post- 9/11 U.S. chemical industry.

Wednesday, October 24 – Frank P. Lees Memorial Lecture: A New Approach to Process Safety Based on Systems Thinking

Nancy Leveson
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics
MIT

Nancy Leveson is Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and also Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). Prof. Leveson conducts research on the topics of system safety, software safety, software and system engineering, and human-computer interaction. In 1999, she received the ACM Allen Newell Award for outstanding computer science research and in 1995 the AIAA Information Systems Award for “developing the field of software safety and for promoting responsible software and system engineering practices where life and property are at stake.” In 2005 she received the ACM Sigsoft Outstanding Research Award. She has published over 200 research papers and is author of two books, “Safeware: System Safety and Computers” published in 1995 by Addison-Wesley and “Engineering a Safer World” published in 2012 by MIT Press. She consults extensively in many industries on the ways to prevent accidents.

Thursday, October 25 – Keynote Lecture: Learning from Deepwater Horizon – Applying the Learning’s

Steve Flynn
Vice President,
Health Safety Security & Environment
BP

Steve was appointed Vice President for Health, Safety, Security & Environment, BP Group in November 2007. In November 2010, Steve’s role was expanded to oversee the company-wide risk processes for engineering, HSSE and operations risks and a program to enhance the capability and processes for investigating incidents and embedding learnings.

Steve graduated in Chemical Engineering from University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in 1981. Steve went on to earn Masters and PhD degrees from Manchester for his research work, prior to joining BP Research at Sunbury-on-Thames in 1984.

Steve spent the early part of his career with BP in technology, initially involved in mineral processing and going on to coordinate BP’s environmental technology programmes in the early nineties. Since then Steve has had a variety of roles in the area of Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) management in the Exploration and Production business. This included senior roles in North Sea operations in the late 1990’s, and more recently as HSE Manager for BP’s Gulf of Mexico Projects. Steve was also Head of HSE for Exploration and Production during the BP Amoco merger and spent an assignment in BP’s corporate planning department in London supporting executive management on strategy, commercial planning and financial analysis.

Following the Texas City explosion in March 2005, Steve returned to London to support the development of BP’s strategic agenda in the area of Safety and Operations prior to taking up his current role.

Steve was closely involved in BP’s response to the Deepwater Horizon incident during 2010 through leading the technical HSSE support response team and in testifying for BP at a US Senate hearing on Work Place Safety in July.

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