Late last week, Douglas Morris, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE) Chief of Offshore Regulatory Programs, traveled to the Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas for a two day day planning session. Morris met with Dr. M. Sam Mannon, Dr. Tadeusz Patzek, Dr.Rashid Hasan and Dr. Ramanan Krishnamoorti to discuss the Offshore Energy Safety Institute's (Institutes) nation wide search for a first Director and the path forward for the Institute.
The top item on the agenda was the nation wide search for a Director. Applications are currently being accepted through the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University (TEES) employment website . More information on the position and responsibilities can be found here. Applications are being accepted through February 15, 2014. Interested candidates are encouraged to complete applications as soon as possible.
While at the Ocean Energy Safety Institute (OESI) the group also discussed the development of outreach and relationship building opportunities between the Institute, industry, academia and other governmental agencies. In line with that effort are a series of forums, to be hosted by the Institute in 2014, covering topics such as risk, research, failure data reporting, best available and safest technologies and the human factors of risk. More information on the forums will announced as details become available.
In November 2013, BSEE announced today that the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station's (TEES) Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center had been selected to manage the Institute. The five-year agreement, with $5 million in total funding from BSEE, provides a forum for dialogue, shared learning and cooperative research among academia, government, industry and other non-government organizations in offshore-related technologies and activities that help ensure environmentally safe and responsible offshore operations. TEES is partnering with Texas A&M University, University of Texas and University of Houston to manage the institute.
Mary Kay O' Connor Process Safety Center Selected to Lead $5 Million Ocean Energy Safety Institute