President's Message

How Far We’ve Come

Abstract

In preparing for my final President’s message, I have reflected on what we have accomplished. I mean this in both the general, with regard to the discipline of system safety, as well as the specific with regard to the last two years in the International System Safety Society.

One of my favorite hobbies is restoring antique radios. I was recently reminded of some hazards associated with an antique radio where the use of a non-polarized plug can result in a hot chassis — a potentially fatal mistake. This was a common feature of early electrical designs. Today, we take it as a given that plugging in an appliance is a safe act. With these older systems, the metal chassis could deliver a fatal shock if the user were to come in contact with it.