President's Message: Diversity

Robert Schmedake

doi:10.56094/jss.v51i1.162

Authors

Robert Schmedake Boeing

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.56094/jss.v51i1.162

Keywords:

professional deelopment, diversity, society, financial

Abstract

I’ve been wondering what to write for this issue’s President’s Message, and the Journal of System Safety editor has been reminding me to get this done. I finally settled on a topic that encompasses professional development, day-to-day work and the running of the Society. So, how does “diversity” do this?

In professional development, diverse experiences add to the value of the professional. This past fall, I had the opportunity to teach at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I taught two classes: One was system safety engineering and the other was reliability engineering. I’ve taught the system safety course a number of times, and the material was familiar. My students included international students, engineers working in aerospace and medical equipment, and others. Not working specifically in the system safety field, the students probed topics and asked questions that brought a different perspective to the material. These perspectives force us to re-examine the topic and often cause us to reach new, or more developed, views of system safety.

Author Biography

Robert Schmedake, Boeing

Robert Schmedake is a Boeing Technical Fellow with over 25 years of experience in system safety engineering. He is a Fellow Member and past President of ISSS as well as the Secretary of the G-48 system safety committee and the U.S. Co-Chair of the S5000F Committee. He is a member of the joint Aerospace Industries of America & Aerospace and Defense Industries of Europe Integrated Logistic Support Specification Council. He served in the U.S. military from 1986 to 2012.