IRM announces first speaker

The Institute of Risk Management (IRM) has announced Stephen Carver, lecturer in Project Management at Cranfield School of Management, as its first keynote speaker for the 2008 Risk Forum, to be held from 15 - 17 September 2008 at the University of Hertfordshire at Hatfield.

Carver will discuss risk communication with specific reference to the NASA space shuttle disasters.

“Carver will argue that in Feb 2003 when the space shuttle Colombia burnt up on re-entry and the entire crew perished this was a managerial repeat of the Challenger disaster.

He will be using as his case study the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger on January 28th 1986 - just one minute after launch, an accident that had been predicted as being inevitable by the designers for years. The day before the key engineers believed that there was “essentially a 100% probability of disaster”.

Carver will argue that in Feb 2003 when the space shuttle Colombia burnt up on re-entry and the entire crew perished this was a managerial repeat of the Challenger disaster.