Industrial Risk: Beyond The Blueprint

About the Guest John Somers is the Vice President of the Construction & Utility Sector at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM). In this role, he is responsible for the strategic direction of construction and utility programs and services, serving as the primary liaison to AEM’s CE Sector Board. Since joining AEM in 2007, he has continuously expanded his leadership, collaborating with i...

About the Guest Dr. Tom Krause is a preeminent thought leader on organizational culture, safety leadership, and executive decision-making. With a Ph. D. in Clinical Psychology, he founded Behavioral Science Technology (BST) in 1979, eventually conducting over 2,300 consulting projects across 60 countries. Most notably, following the Columbia space shuttle tragedy, NASA selected Dr. Krause to desig...

Overview The conversation centers on major US risk signals involving AI governance, specifically the Anthropic/Pentagon standoff, the fragmented war between state AI laws (such as in Colorado and California) versus federal pushback, and high-profile government compliance failures. This live session is a return visit for Ahmed and a follow-up to Episode 9 , which featured him as a guest to discuss...

About the Guest Wim Vandekerckhove is a Full Professor of Business Ethics at EDHEC Business School and one of the world's leading authorities on whistleblowing and organizational speak-up systems. He led the international team that created ISO 37002—the global standard for whistleblowing management systems. With over twenty years of experience studying why people stay silent about wrongdoing, he h...

About the Guest Matthew I. Snowden is the Surety Practice Leader at The Mahoney Group in Phoenix, Arizona, where he helps construction businesses scale bonding capacity and reduce risk through tailored surety strategies. Drawing on his experience building and selling his own insurance agency (Talanton Insurance Agency), Matt brings a unique perspective as both an entrepreneur and risk advisor. He...

About the Guest Hale Stewart is Of Counsel at Dickinson Wright’s Austin office, where he specializes in captive insurance formation, tax law, and regulatory compliance. A fifth-generation attorney from Texas, he has spent over a decade in the captive and alternative risk transfer space, helping companies in trucking, energy, manufacturing, and construction build their own insurance companies. He i...

In this episode, host Jowanza Joseph speaks with retired Brigadier General Tom Kolditz to explore what leadership looks like when lives are on the line, and why the best peacetime CEO might actually be the wrong person to lead you through a real crisis. About the Guest Tom (Brig. Gen., Ret.) Kolditz is a renowned expert in crisis leadership and leading in extreme contexts. He is the author of In E...

In this episode, host Jowanza Joseph explores Human and Organizational Performance (HOP)—a radical framework that encourages companies to stop looking for fault in their people and start looking for weaknesses in their systems. About the Guest Andrea Baker is a chemical engineer and the founder of The HOP Mentor , a consultancy dedicated to helping industrial organizations embed HOP principles int...

In this episode, host Jowanza Joseph sits down with global HSE leader Paul Leonard . They explore the philosophy of "Cathedral Thinking"—a long-term strategy for building high-reliability organizations based on trust, learning agility, and a deep sense of belonging. About the Guest Paul Leonard is a global HSE executive , expert witness, and culture change expert who specializes in preventing unpl...

About the Guest Dr. Elif Erkal is a construction safety research expert who specializes in predicting serious injuries and fatalities (SIF) using data analytics. She currently serves as the Associate Director of Research and Strategy at the Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) at CU Boulder. Her groundbreaking work challenges traditional safety metrics and advocates for the use of predicti...

In this episode, I talk to Lee Campe , who blends military discipline with Lean Six Sigma methodologies . Lee teaches organizations how to shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive risk prevention. About the Guest Lee Campe is a former US Army Airborne Ranger and a leading national expert on metric development, KPIs, problem-solving, and Lean Six Sigma deployment. As the President of Perfor...

In this episode, investigative journalist and author Justin Mikulka breaks down the hidden dangers of crude-by-rail transport, the systematic erosion of safety regulations, and why the rail industry often treats disasters as cheaper than accident prevention. About the Guest Justin Mikulka is a former civil engineer turned investigative journalist. He is the author of Bomb Trains: How Industry Gree...

In this episode, NASA veterans Dr. Jim Peters and Dr. Lou Carfagno from the Space Leadership Institute pull back the curtain on human spaceflight safety, commercial space partnerships, and what heavy industry and commercial business can learn from the cosmos. You’ll find out: * When the margin for error is absolute zero, how do you prevent emotional bias from overriding logical risk management? *...

When we think about industrial safety, we often picture hard hats, steel-toed boots, and rigid protocols, but the future of safety isn't just physical—it’s psychological. In this episode, Dr. Emily J. Haas , Associate Director for Science at CDC/NIOSH’s Division of Safety Research, shares how to turn safety research into practical, real-world changes in frontline behavior. About the Guest Dr. Emil...

We used to think the greatest danger of artificial intelligence was that it might make a mistake. We were wrong. The real danger is what happens when the AI knows exactly what it is doing , recognizes that it is breaking the rules, and decides to do it anyway. Can we stop smart systems from making disastrous decisions? Listen to Jowanza and Joe exploring the exact dilemma. Four Key Patterns Discus...

In this episode, Taras "Terry" Szmagala Jr. , recently retired Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer at Eaton , shares how cross-functional integration of legal, compliance, and communications is the key to navigating global industrial risk. About the Guest Taras ("Terry") Szmagala Jr. is the founder of TGS Advisory , where he helps organizations build critical government affairs capabi...

In this episode, Kevin Ring , Lead Workers’ Compensation Analyst at the Institute of WorkComp Professionals (IWCP), proves that workers' comp is actually one of the largest controllable business expenses for employers. About the Guest Kevin Ring (MWCA, CBWA) is the Lead Workers’ Compensation Analyst at the Institute of WorkComp Professionals (IWCP) . With over 22 years of experience, Kevin has ana...

In this episode of Industrial Risk: Beyond the Blueprint, we welcome Doug Sheridan , founder and Managing Director of EnergyPoint Research. Doug is an independent energy analyst and a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal , New York Times , and Barron’s. Doug joins the podcast to cut through the political and commercial noise surrounding the global energy transition. He exposes the risk...

Dr. D. Lynn Kelley is a seasoned executive and change leader. She served as Senior Vice President of Supply Chain & Continuous Improvement at Union Pacific Railroad and VP of Operational Excellence at Textron. Lynn is the co-author of Change Questions: A Playbook for Effective and Lasting Organizational Change, together with John Shook. Dr. Kelley has been part of Lean learning communities since t...

In this episode of Industrial Risk: Beyond the Blueprint, George Pesansky —Six Sigma Master Black Belt, President of MyBlendedLearning.com, U.S. Army veteran, and author of Superperformance: 8 Strategies to Reach Full Potential for Yourself, Your Team, and Your Organization —joins host Jowanza Joseph to reveal why "continuous" improvement fails without intention, what "human error" really tells yo...

About the Guest Guido Palazzo is Professor of Business Ethics at HEC Lausanne, one of Europe's most cited business ethics scholars, and a recipient of the Max Weber Award for Business Ethics from the German President. He co-authored The Dark Pattern: The Hidden Dynamics of Corporate Scandals (2024), which maps the nine recurring toxic elements behind corporate failures at Boeing, Volkswagen, Thera...

Jowanza’s guest is Trae Mazza , a Senior Security Engineer at RMC Global and the researcher who discovered critical vulnerabilities in Siemens RuggedCom devices that triggered multiple CISA advisories. His job is to break into power plants, water treatment facilities, and industrial control systems—legally—and what he finds should keep every industrial operator awake at night. Trae Mazza’s Philoso...

About the Guest Josh Bryant is General Manager - People, Risk (HSE) and Sustainability at Mitchell Services Limited (ASX: MSV), one of Australia's leading mineral drilling contractors. With over 20 years of experience, Josh has established himself as a transformational leader in mining safety culture. He holds a B.Sc in Geology and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance, and was awarded the 2018 Pr...

About the Guest In this episode, the guest is Dr. Charles Coker —CEO of LifeThrive Performance Systems and a pioneer in human data management. As a co-founder of The Balfour Motivational Research Institute (BMRI) , he spent years identifying and codifying the key human factors that contribute to motivation and success. Dr. Coker presents a unique blend of academic research, corporate consulting ex...

In this episode of Industrial Risk: Beyond the Blueprint, Charles Paajoe (Charles Tetteh) —Ghanaian-American photographer, safety leader, and founder of Humans Among Us—joins host Jowanza Joseph to explore how photography becomes a bridge between cultures, who the “voiceless” are in America’s industrial heartland, and why the skills that make great storytelling also make great safety leadership.​...