DRILLBITS
Monthly eNewsletter from the IADC

IADC’S HSE&T CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION will provide a forum to learn, exchange and develop progressive Health, Safety, Environmental and Training best practices to drive the upstream energy industry forward. The focus will be on understanding and delivering optimal human and organizational HSE&T performance.

Keynote Presentation by Bernie Wolford – Tuesday, 18 April 

Bernie Wolford graduated from Texas Tech University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering in 1981. He held a number of significant operations management positions with Noble Drilling, working in the US, the far and middle East, Brazil, and Europe. Wolford then joined Pacific Drilling as CEO in 2018. In 2021 he was named CEO of Diamond Offshore. Diamond operates a fleet of twelve deep-water rigs across the major basins of the world.

The theme of Wolford’s keynote presentation will be: How the industry has changed over the past 40 years… and how it remains the same. What can we learn to achieve further improvements in HSE performance?

Keynote Address by Todd Conklin – Wednesday, 19 April 

Todd Conklin spent 25 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Senior Advisor for Organizational and Safety Culture. Los Alamos National Laboratory is one of the world’s foremost research and development laboratories; Dr. Conklin has been working on the Human Performance program for the last 15 years of his 25-year career. It is in this fortunate position where he enjoys the best of both the academic world and the world of safety in practice. 

Conklin holds a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of New Mexico. He speaks all over the world to executives, groups and work teams who are interested in better understanding the relationship between the workers in the field and the organization’s systems, processes, and programs. He has brought these systems to major corporations around the world. Conklin practices these ideas not only in his own workplace, but also in the event investigations at other workplaces around the world. Conklin’s best selling book, Pre-Accident Investigations: An introduction to Organizational Safety is a best selling book on safety. Conklin has several other books and a huge podcast following for his twice-weekly podcast of the same name. Conklin defines safety at his workplace like this: “Safety is the ability for workers to be able to do work in a varying and unpredictable world.”