What You May Not Know About Mark Paradies, President of System Improvements, Inc.
Who is Mark Paradies, and what should you know about him?
If you’re a TapRooT® User, you probably know that Mark Paradies is one of the co-creators of the TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis System and a co-author of the TapRooT® Series of Book series.
You may have heard that he has extensive experience with root cause analysis and incident investigation. But did you know that…
Mark Paradies is a Certified Professional Ergonomist (CPE).
He was the 85th person to be certified in ergonomics and human factors by the Board of Certified Professional Ergonomists. Mark has worked extensively on projects to improve human performance and reduce human errors.
His master’s degree research at the University of Illinois was focused on the proper roles of operators and automation for the next generation of nuclear power plants (human factors function allocation).
Before starting System Improvements Inc., he worked at Du Pont on projects to improve aspects of human performance, including procedure usability and usage, and operator, maintenance, and technical training. He also developed systems for managing performance improvement in a resource-limited environment.
Once he started his own company, he used his human factors knowledge and experience to build the TapRooT® System, including the ability to analyze and fix human performance/human behavior issues.
Mark was in Admiral Rickover’s Nuclear Navy (a high-reliability organization).
Mark has studied high-reliability organizations. But Mark has one major advantage over most of those who do academic research and speak about high-reliability organizations: He has worked in a high-reliability organization, the Nuclear Navy (the original high-reliability organization). Therefore, he knows firsthand what works, why it works, and what doesn’t work BECAUSE HE HAS BEEN THERE. He understands Admiral Rickover’s management systems and practical methods to guard against the normalization of deviation.
Mark has a unique understanding of “process safety.”
Mark has two engineering degrees (BSEE and MS Nuc E), human factors training, and experience working in Admiral Rickover’s Nuclear Navy (where he achieved his Engineer Certification). This gives him a unique understanding of process/nuclear safety. He has written about this experience and provided talks for companies around the world who are interested and invested in improving their process safety systems and senior management’s understanding of process safety. See a relevant snippet from his Global TapRooT® Summit talk from 2012 below.
Mark has developed trending techniques for infrequently occurring safety and quality data.
Mark used the work of statistical experts Dr. Donald Wheeler, Dr. Walter Shewhart, and W. Edwards Deming to develop techniques for finding statistically valid trends in infrequently occurring accident data. Mark wrote a book about performance measurement and trending titled Performance Measures and Trending for Safety, Quality, and Business Management and a trending course.
Is Mark a TV celebrity?
Well, not exactly. He has appeared on three different TV shows (on Fox Business News, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV—one was recorded in Hollywood, next to the studio that Johnny Carson used) to talk about successful advanced root cause analysis (TapRooT® RCA). Here are two videos of his appearances on shows…
Of course, Mark has appeared in dozens of TapRooT® TV episodes (recorded in our offices in Knoxville, TN).
Mark is a renowned, valued source of logic, wisdom, and hands-on practical experience.
In his spare time between working for high-reliability organizations (the Nuclear Navy and DuPont) and leading System Improvements, Mark designed and built roads (driving a bulldozer, track loader, excavator, and dump trucks), produced hardwood lumber from trees, and helped design two houses. While working in college, getting his BS in Electrical Engineering, he was a field supervisor (in actual agricultural fields), supervised a commercial kitchen, and installed and repaired cable TV networks. While getting his MS in Nuclear Engineering and Human Factors, he was an Assistant Professor of Naval Science and taught midshipmen Naval Weapons theory and Naval History. While still in high school, Mark worked in agricultural jobs, construction, and retail and ran his own lawn-mowing/landscape business (which he started when he was in the 5th grade).
Those are the lesser-known facts about Mark’s experience.
Questions?
If you have questions for Mark or would like to consult with him about your improvement efforts, put in a request, or call 865-539-2139. Guaranteed, you will learn something you can immediately use.
