Background
Dr. Grose writes on
Risk Management: A Systemic Approach for IRMI.com.
Described in Business Week as a
founding father of the application of systems methodology to managing risk,
he enjoys worldwide recognition as an authority in that field. His
interdisciplinary perspective on the subject is based on over 50 years of
personal involvement, having served as an executive in three major
corporations, university professor in Europe as well as the United States,
and consultant to such firms as AT&T, EXXON, and IBM.
Holding a B.S. in physics, M.S. in systems management, and honorary
D.Sc., he was a member of the Applied Physics Staff at The Boeing Company,
where he performed the first Boeing tests that combined three dynamic
environments simultaneously and wrote the development test program for the
Minuteman ICBM.
He originated the widely adopted SMART (Systems Methodology Applied to
Risk Termination) technique for managing every type of risk—legal,
political, social, economic, and technological—which was successfully
utilized to combat terrorism at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Dr. Grose was affiliated with Litton Industries as director of
reliability as well as program manager for Project SPARR, an Air Force
program of basic and applied research on space system problems. Afterward,
he joined Northrop Ventura as director of applied technology, responsible
for all engineering test activities and the disciplines of chemistry,
metallurgy, reliability, configuration management, and value engineering on
the earth landing systems for NASA Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. As
chief of reliability at Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell Corporation, he
continued his involvement in the Gemini and Apollo Programs.
Dr. Wernher von Braun appointed him to the NASA Safety Advisory Group for
Space Flight in 1969. Three appointments by the National Academy of Sciences
have involved his systems management background: Panel on Human Error in
Merchant Marine Safety, Committee on Research Needs to Reduce Maritime
Collisions, Rammings, and Groundings, and Panel on Causes and Prevention of
Grain Elevator Explosions.
From 1966 to 1982, he was vice president of Tustin Institute of
Technology in Santa Barbara, California, responsible for all management
curricula and system technology studies. During that period, the People's
Republic of China invited him in 1981 to address their Academy of Sciences
in Beijing on the systematic management of risk.
President Reagan appointed him to both the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) and the National Highway Safety Advisory Commission. His
appointment to the NTSB was based on his extensive participation in all
transportation modes. As a board member, he headed the NTSB "Go-Team"
investigation of major accidents.
The White House assigned him for 1 year as associate administrator for
R&D at the Environmental Protection Agency to implement systematic
management of risk. On another White House assignment as expert consultant
to the NASA Chief Engineer, he pioneered a model for commercial enterprise
in space. In 1997, Vice President Gore solicited his expertise for the White
House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security.
His 2006 book, Science but Not Scientists:
How Everything Began—Chance or Creation?, recounts his central role
in winning a significant victory for scientific objectivity that has been
perverted ever since the Scopes Trial of 1925. Reviewers of his best-selling
Prentice Hall book, Managing Risk: Systematic
Loss Prevention for Executives, called it "the most influential book
on the subject in this decade." Widely used in universities, it is now in
its third printing. In 2012, he published
Purpose in a Random World: Have You Ever Wondered Why? His
professional papers have been published internationally in over 60 journals
and periodicals.
A featured guest on the Today Show, Good
Morning America, Prime Time Live, CBS Newswatch, ABC 20/20, BBC-London,
O'Reilly Factor, and many other television programs, he has given
over 100 interviews on CNN as their risk and aviation analyst. He gave over
170 interviews on the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800. Dr. Grose is a FOX
News contributor and was being interviewed just as UAL 175 impacted the
World Trade Center Tower 2 on September 11, 2001. His viewpoints have been
published in such periodicals as Time, USA
Today, US News & World Report, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times,
Washington Post, and Christian Science
Monitor. He delivered the 2005 keynote address at NASA Marshall Space
Flight Center’s Safety Day.
His biography appears in Liftoff by
James C. Hefley, which describes the personal faith of astronauts and space
scientists. He is listed in WHO'S WHO In the
West, Dictionary of International Biography, Men of Achievement 1973,
International WHO’S WHO of Intellectuals, and
WHO'S WHO In The World.