COLLEGE STATION, Texas, Oct. 21, 2009 – Authorities on safety from throughout the world will convene in College Station next week as part of a two-day symposium aimed at making the process industry a safer place and sponsored by the Texas A&M University System Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center.
The symposium “Beyond Regulatory Compliance, Making Safety Second Nature” is scheduled for Oct. 27-28 at the Hilton Conference Center and will feature wide variety of safety-related lectures and presentations, including process safety challenges in a hydrogen economy; effective process safety auditing techniques; technical analysis of the Buncefield explosion; and various topics pertaining to liquefied natural gas.
In addition, the symposium will feature exhibits from companies looking to demonstrate products, technology and software related to process safety.
“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,” said M. Sam Mannan, director of the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center. “I firmly believe that we are making major strides towards our goal of making safety second nature,” added Mannan, who also holds the title of Regents Professor in Texas A&M’s Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering.
Andrew Hopkins, professor of sociology at the Australian National University, headlines a distinguished list of presenters speaking throughout the two-day span and will deliver the annual Frank P. Lees Memorial Lecture. Hopkins is scheduled to present “Why BP Failed to Learn the Lessons: The Texas City Refinery Explosion” at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Hopkins, who served as an expert witness at the Royal Commission, which investigated the causes of the fire at Esso’s gas plant at Longford in Victoria in 1998, has written several books focusing on the organizational and cultural causes of major accidents.
In 2001 he was the expert member of the board of inquiry into the exposure of Air Force maintenance workers to toxic chemicals. He has been involved in various government occupational health and safety reviews and has consulted with major companies in the resources sector.
In addition, Hopkins served as a consultant to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board in its investigation of the Texas City accident and has published a book on that accident, “Failure to Learn: the BP Texas City Refinery Disaster.”
Hopkins has a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Australian National University, a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut and is a Fellow of the Safety Institute of Australia.
Established in 1995, the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center is dedicated to enhancing safety in the chemical process industry. The center conducts various educational endeavors aimed at “making safety second nature” to everyone in the industry. In addition, center researchers work to develop safer processes, equipment, procedures and management strategies to minimize losses.
For more information about the symposium, including a full schedule, visit http://psc.tamu.edu/ and click on “2009 Symposium,” or contact Donna Startz at (979) 845-5981 or via email: donnas@tamu.edu.
