From the Editor's Desk

Habits

Authors

  • Clif Ericson Risk-Logic

Keywords:

habit, power of habit

Abstract

As editor of Journal of System Safety, I often do “extracurricular” reading to keep up with events and technology. Recently, I read a book titled The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. The book is primarily about the power that habits hold over us, how to modify bad habits and how to create new, good habits. It was an interesting book, but what really caught my attention was one of the case studies described in its pages. This particular case study followed Paul O’Neill as he took over as CEO of Alcoa in 1987.

Author Biography

Clif Ericson, Risk-Logic

Clifton Ericson II has 45 years of experience in the field of system safety, software safety, reliability, and fault tree analysis. He currently works for URS Corporation (formerly EG&G) where he provides technical analysis, consulting, oversight and training on system/software safety projects. He currently supports NAVAIR systems safety on the UCAS and BAMS unmanned aircraft systems, and he is assisting in writing NAVAIR system safety policies and procedures. Mr. Ericson was employed as a Senior Principal Engineer for the Boeing Company for 35 years. At Boeing, he worked in the fields of system safety, reliability, software engineering and computer programming. Mr. Ericson has been involved in all aspects of system safety, including hazard analysis, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), software safety, safety certification, safety documentation, safety research, new business proposals and safety training. He has worked on a diversity of projects, such as missile systems, people mover systems, commercial aircraft, B-1A/B-2 bombers, AWACS, EPRI solar power system, and the Apollo Technical Integration program.

He served as President and Vice-President of the System Safety Society and was Co-Chairman of the 16th International System Safety Conference. He is the founder of the Puget Sound chapter (Seattle) of the System Safety Society. In 2000, he won the Boeing Apollo Award for safety consulting work on the International Space Station, and the Boeing Achievement Award for developing the Boeing fault tree analysis course. Mr. Ericson won the System Safety Society’s President’s Achievement Award in 1998, 1999 and 2004 for outstanding work in the system safety field.

He is author of the books, “Hazard Analysis Techniques for System Safety” (2005) and “The Concise Encyclopedia of System Safety Terms and Definitions” (to be released in April 2011). He has published many technical articles in system and software safety and is currently editor of the Journal of System Safety (JSS), a publication of the System Safety Society. Mr. Ericson has taught courses on software safety and fault tree analysis at the University of Washington and in Singapore and Australia. (from clifericson.com)

From the Editor's Desk

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Published

2014-06-01

How to Cite

Ericson, C. (2014). From the Editor’s Desk: Habits. Journal of System Safety, 50(2), 4–5. Retrieved from https://jsystemsafety.com/index.php/jss/article/view/218

Issue

Vol. 50 No. 2 (2014): Selling the Need for Safety

Section

From the Editor

License

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.