Citation
(2000), "By Accident A Life Preventing Them in Industry", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 9 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2000.07309eae.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2000, MCB UP Limited
By Accident A Life Preventing Them in Industry
By Accident … A Life Preventing Them in Industry
Trevor KletzPFV Publications11 September 2000176 pp. including 16 pp. of photographs, softbackISBN 0953844005£14.95
Trevor Kletz, the outstanding communicator on safety in the process industries, is a chemist turned chemical engineer who spent all his working life with ICI. Commenting on Kletz's achievements in a foreword, his old ICI boss, Sir John Harvey-Jones, writes:
Trevor single-handedly taught us to look at safety in a different way … [He] will, I am sure, always sleep soundly at night, secure in the knowledge that his persistence, imagination and passion have saved countless numbers of his fellow men from injury, mutilation and even death.
Kletz's books, articles and presentations have taken his fame around the world. Now, his autobiography By Accident, written in his inimitable prose, tells for the first time how he got where he is today; at the same time he paints a picture of a remarkable British company in its heyday. In an attempt to encourage young people towards an industrial career, he describes the challenges young scientists or engineers starting out in industry might expect to find.
Kletz was born in 1922. Inspired by the chance gift of a chemistry set when a boy of only 11 years of age, he spent 38 years with ICI in the Teesside area. In research and plant management he gained a lot of early experience. Then, in 1968 came a defining change of direction: appointed ICI's first technical safety adviser, he hugely increased the influence of the role and helped improve ICI's process safety record dramatically. Leaving ICI in 1982, Kletz made a second career as consultant and writer, commentator and lecturer on all aspects of process safety.
Editor's note
I have had the pleasure of knowing Trevor Kletz for several years and I am honoured to know him – a colleague who taught me how to regard safety not only from a commercial point of view, but also in terms of human compassion. His knowledge of man-made industrial disasters is legendary. His approach to industrial disaster prevention may sometimes be regarded as simplistic, but beneath that veneer is a wealth of experience, knowledge and understanding of extremely complex systems. He truly is a man worth knowing.