News
What Did You Learn at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit?
Posted: March 13th, 2012 in SummitGeneral Session Presentations at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit
Posted: March 12th, 2012 in Pictures, SummitThe best part of the General Sessions were what the Keynote Speakers had to say. But all I have to show you are some pictures. Great if you were there … but otherwise, you missed out. :-(
Wednesday
Ready – Set – Go! and The Name Game …
Rescue of 33 Miners – René Aguiliar
So You Think You Have Problems? – Cristine Cashen
Thursday
Character Driven Success – Beverely Chiodo
Beverly Receiving the “Most Beloved Speaker” Award
What Does Senior Management Want from Incident Investigation & Root Cause Analysis – Gerry Migliaccio (Sr. VP, Pfizer); Vicki Hollub (President and General Manager, Oxy Permian CO2); Susan Sinclair (Executive Director, Sisters of Mercy); Facilitator, Mark Paradies (President, SI)
Friday
Lessons Learned from Apollo 13 – Ken Mattingly
Success Story Awards at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit – Pictures
Posted: March 12th, 2012 in SummitPictures from the TapRooT® Summit – TapRooT® User Best Practice Session
Posted: March 8th, 2012 in Pictures, SummitPictures from The Wednesday Night Reception at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit
Posted: March 5th, 2012 in Pictures, SummitPeople told me they had a great time networking at the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit Reception held Wednesday night at Margaritaville and here are pictures to prove it …
Don’t miss the fun and networking at the 2013 TapRooT® Summit in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to be held on March 18-22, 2013. Save the dates in your planner and budget for the travel now!
Results from the 2012 Global TapRooT® Summit Golf Tournament
Posted: March 3rd, 2012 in Pictures, SummitFirst the most important result …
We raised a record $5,500 for the Oasis of Love Women’s Shelter!
Now for the golf results …
First, the individual competitions:
Closest to the Pin on #3 – Mike Devience

Closet to the pin on #7 – Dan Jelinski

Closest to the pin on #15 – Brian Tink

Longest drive on #2 – Scott Robinson

Longest drive on #18 – Brian Dolin
Now for the winning team …
Ed Skpmpski
Raj Malik
Brian Locker
Dave Minchau
They shot a 62 and came in two shots ahead of Dan Verlinde’s team that shot a 64.
It is the fifth time that Brian Locker has been on the winning team.
Here’s the complete results …

62 – Team Captain Ed Skpmpski, Raj Malik, Brian Locker, Dave Minchau

64 – Team Captain Dan Verlinde, Matt Irving, Michael Devience, Dallas Smith

66 – Team Captain Brian W Tink, Gary Bochanesk, Brian A Tink, Dan Jelinski

67 – Team Captain Brian Dolin, Doug Barnette, Greg Allan, Scott Robinson

71 – Team Captain Linda Unger, Nancy Hitchens, Brian Dovey, Jade Washmon, Larry Wehner

71 – Team Captain Ken Scott, Doug Detherow, Michael Podgorny, David Doyle
72 – Team Captain Mark Paradies, Darryl Hauck, Bill Sirois, Mike Rodriguez
(We voted and we had the most fun!)

72 – Team Captain Michele Lindsay, Tom Bartzis, Kevin Dunn, Glen Deveaux

80 – Team Captain Garrett Boyd, Steve Dobbs, Malcolm Gresham, Paul Hughes
Here are some more golf photos …

Michele played without her famous driver (broken in transit).

Benna organized this year’s tournament.

A very fast start – no practice!
Way too much work lining up a putt…

Should have kept my head down!
Summit Report from Mark
Posted: February 29th, 2012 in SummitWow! What a morning and early afternoon!
The session with Rene Aguliar about the rescue of the Chilian miners. The inside story from someone who lived the experience was outstanding.
I also enjoyed the session about developing and maintaining excellent investigators.
I just came from Susan Lewis’ talk about implementing the web based TapRooT® Software. I didn’t know that our software could do so much.
Now I have to give a talk on what management needs to know about process safety. Wish me luck!
Root Cause Analysis Tips – Learning from Other Industries and Disciplines
Posted: February 29th, 2012 in Root Cause Analysis Tips, SummitI am writing to you this week from the amazing city of Las Vegas, where the Global TapRooT® Summit starts today. On Monday and Tuesday, we held a number of pre-summit courses; they were well attended and a good time was had by all. I would especially like to thank those who attended the course I taught, the Advanced TapRooT® Techniques course.
In the advanced course, we teach the best practices from our 7-Step Process; things we have picked up over the years from teaching, listening to clients, and watching current events. A big focus of the advanced course, however, is causal factors. We do a number of case studies where students get to define causal factors, and real-life cases really get people interested. Teaching the course this week made me think about how interested people are to hear about situations from other industries; after all, people make mistakes for the same reasons (they are human!) and that is the power of TapRooT® – it is transferrable among industries and disciplines. It does not matter if you are investigating a forklift accident in a warehouse or a quality problem in a hospital, you can still get answers from TapRooT®. In the advanced course, our case studies range from traffic accidents to drug overdoses to explosions to fatal falls. If you missed the advanced course this time, please be aware that we can teach the course onsite if you have 10 or more people, just let us know at info@taproot.com. Click HERE for the agenda.
But back to the topic at hand – have you been in your industry for a long time? Have you been at the same company or the same department a long time? Have you always worked in the same discipline? If so, you are at risk of acquiring tunnel vision and being restricted to the best practices only in your company, industry, or discipline.
I worked in the airline industry for 27 years. I knew the business. But the airline industry has high injury rates. And by the way, my company had the lowest rates in the industry. Everyone else wanted to benchmark me, but what could I learn from them? Don’t get me wrong, I am sure I could learn something, but would I not be better off to benchmark a low rate industry rather than an airline? The answer is obvious. When my company became involved in VPP (OSHA’s Voluntary Protection Program), I started being exposed to best practices from other industries, and was amazed at how much we could learn from others.
Another thing that happened to me at my company was the environmental department was merged with my department, corporate safety. The environmental folks taught me a lot, and I taught them how to investigate their spills. I also included them in my OSHA 10 hour classes. It benefited everybody.
I could give many more examples, but you get the point. Make a goal to look “outside your box” and benchmark another industry or discipline. Go to a conference for a different industry or discipline. You will be amazed at what you might learn.
By the way, one of the best places to meet people from other industries and disciplines is our summit, but you have missed this one. But don’t worry, another one is just around the corner; stay tuned for details about the 2013 summit; they will be out soon!
T-24 Hours and Counting …
Posted: February 28th, 2012 in Pictures, SummitWith almost 300 people (some pictured above) at the pre-Summit Courses (many staying for the Summit) we’ve already had a great start to “Summit Week”.
I’m really looking forward to learing from Ken Mattingly (astronaut).
See you at the Summit in the morning!








































































































































































