(59c) The Elephant in the Room

Process Safety offers a career where you are at the forefront of ensuring the safety and well-being of people, the environment, and industrial operations. This is a path where you are not only following protocols; you are leading the charge in creating and implementing safety strategies that will prevent industrial accidents and mitigate risks in high-stakes industries such as chemical and petrochemical production. What no one tells process safety professionals is that because their jobs are a cost center and not a revenue generator, they will have to learn to navigate the balance between operational efficiency and safety.

As a process safety professional, your role is pivotal in guiding teams through complex safety challenges, and making critical decisions that protect lives and assets. It is about having the vision to foresee potential hazards and the determination to address them proactively, even when those around you may have a different agenda. It requires collaboration with engineers, managers, stakeholders, and regulatory bodies to ensure compliance and to drive innovation in safety practices.

Above all, process safety is leadership. A career in process safety requires emotional intelligence, collaboration, leading by example, the ability to be persuasive, patient, compassionate, and determined. Furthermore, with the increasing emphasis on sustainability and stringent regulatory requirements, your expertise will require continuous learning, sharing, and innovation, offering you numerous opportunities to make a significant impact while also advancing your career.

The intent of this paper is to discuss a girl from Appalachia and her journey from being a young farm girl to designing and installing multi-hazard resistant protective buildings. The underlying theme focuses on the role of leadership in engineering and ultimately how it took my career on a significant detour into Process Safety. As the number of lives that you will have an impact on becomes apparent through this discussion, it is worth addressing the elephant in the room – with a career in process safety, you may not be everyone’s best friend at work. That is, until the unfortunate day when your choices save lives.