Michael won this award for for his incredibly patient, consultative, inclusive, technically excellent leadership in stakeholder engagement while guiding the Managing Survival Craft Operations at Offshore Facilities Guideline through its final refinements through to launch in November 2022.  Michael is another Best & Fairest quinella winner, now going for the trifecta!

1. Describe the Project for which you won your ‘Best & Fairest’ Award, and your feelings about being recognised for your efforts?

In 2019 there were two fatalities in the Gulf of Mexico during a launch and recovery of a lifeboat. As we had similar facilities offshore, the Safety Leaders Group wanted a review to be done of risks in the Australian Offshore industry, and I was appointed the lead of the Marine Working Group project team who initially ran an Industry Risk workshop in September 2020 which came out with five main recommendations. 

The next step was to produce a Guideline document for the Australian Offshore industry (and potentially the International Offshore industry), and this involved engagement with OEMS, Regulators , Gulf of Mexico OOCM, Training institutes, Class Societies, and participants from the Marine Working Group who had offshore facilities and involved their Tas, HSE and Safety Case personnel.

2. In your sphere, what Safer Together product or program do you think contributes the most improving to safety outcomes in our industry, and why?

Marine Risks in the Offshore industry are not well understood by all parties and sharing of Lessons learnt and Marine Incident Review Panels run by the Marine Working Group does help to highlight and ensure all personnel involved offshore are aware of these risks .

3. On a personal note, if you could live anywhere for a year, where would you live, and why?

Perth is my home and have been living here for the past 20 years.

4. Do you have anything else you would like to add?

Safety is a continuous improvement process, and one must never take things for granted, as incidents in the Marine sphere could be fatal.