Study Committee Biographical Information
Committee on Options for Implementing the Requirement of Best Available and Safest Technologies for Offshore Oil and Gas Operations
Donald C. Winter, Chair, is an Independent Consultant and Professor of Engineering Practice in the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan. He served as the 74th Secretary of the Navy from January 2006 to March 2009. As Secretary of the Navy, he led America’s Navy and Marine Corps team and was responsible for an annual budget in excess of $125 billion and almost 900,000 people. Previously, Dr. Winter held multiple positions in the aerospace and defense industry as systems engineer, program manager, and corporate executive. He served as chair of the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Michigan. Dr. Winter is also a graduate of the University of Southern California Management Policy Institute; the University of California, Los Angeles, Executive Program; and the Harvard University Program for Senior Executives in National and International Security. In 2002, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Paul M. Bommer is a Senior Lecturer in Petroleum Engineering in the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a major contributor to publications of the University of Texas Petroleum Extension Service, including books on oil well drilling and fundamentals of petroleum. Dr. Bommer was a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–U.S. Geological Survey Flow Rate Technical Group concerning oil rate estimates escaping from the BP Mississippi Canyon 252-001
(Macondo) well. In 1979, he cofounded Bommer Engineering Company, which is an oil and gas consulting company specializing in drilling and production operations and oil and gas appraisals. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas. Dr. Bommer served as a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future. He received a PhD in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Robert Brenner joined the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University as a senior fellow in October 2011. At the institute, he assesses the cost-effective technologies, policies, and regulatory approaches that can be used, in conjunction with the Clean Air Act, to meet air quality goals for multiple pollutants and sources. Before joining Duke, Mr. Brenner served in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for 32 years. In August 2011 he retired from his role at EPA as Director of the Office of Policy Analysis and Review in the Office of Air and Radiation, where he was focused on finding innovative, cost-effective ways to implement the Clean Air Act, particularly through the use of market-based approaches such as emissions trading and other economic incentives. Before starting with EPA in 1979, Mr. Brenner worked at Princeton University’s Center for International Studies. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in economics and public policy from Princeton University.
Anthony P. Ciavarelli is President and Chief Scientist of Human Factors Associates, Inc., which provides advice to various industries on organizational and operational safety improvement. He is also a retired Professor of Applied Psychology, Naval Postgraduate School, where he taught and conducted research on human factors and training technology. He served as Associate Provost for Instruction at the Naval Postgraduate School from 1999 to 2001, where he was responsible for supervising curriculum updates, faculty development, and faculty academic services. Dr. Ciavarelli has a broad technical background that includes training requirements analysis, system engineering development, and human–machine interface design gained over more than 20 years in the aerospace and defense industries. He is an experienced human factors engineer and research psychologist and conducted research in military aircrew training and human performance assessment before joining the faculty at the Naval Postgraduate School in 1989. Dr. Ciavarelli was initially assigned to the School of Aviation Safety (Naval Postgraduate School), where he taught human factors and air safety for 15 years and conducted research designed to improve individual, team, and organizational performance. He was awarded tenure in 1996 and promoted to full professor in 1999. His most recent human research is focused on identifying organizational factors in accident causation. He and a research team from the Naval Postgraduate School and the University of California, Berkeley, developed a web-based Organizational Safety Climate Assessment
System that is now in use in Naval Aviation and U.S. Marine Corps ground forces to assess leadership commitment to safety, safety program effectiveness, and safety culture. He has developed similar online organizational surveys for a variety of civilian aviation organizations and for use in aerospace and medical applications. Dr. Ciavarelli received an EdD from the University of Southern California in education, and he has a master’s degree in experimental psychology from California State University at Los Angeles.
Louis Anthony (Tony) Cox, Jr., is President of Cox Associates, an applied research company specializing in quantitative health risk assessment, causal modeling, probabilistic and statistical risk analysis, data mining, and operations research based in Denver, Colorado. Since 1986, Cox Associates mathematicians and scientists have developed and applied computer simulation and biomathematical models, statistical and epidemiological risk analyses, causal data mining techniques, and operations research and artificial intelligence risk and decision models to improve health, business, and engineering risk analysis and decision making for public- and private-sector clients. Dr. Cox holds a PhD in risk analysis and an SM in operations research, both from Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has an AB from Harvard University and is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program. He is a member of the National Research Council Board on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications and is Honorary Full Professor of Mathematics at the University of Colorado at Denver, where he has lectured on biomathematics, health risk modeling, computational statistics, and causality. Dr. Cox is on the Faculties of the Center for Computational Mathematics and the Center for Computational Biology at the University of Colorado at Denver and is Clinical Professor of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, where he has focused on uncertainty analysis and causation in epidemiological studies. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012.
James S. Dyer holds the Fondren Centennial Chair in the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. In 1999, he received the College of Business Administration Foundation Advisory Council Award for Outstanding Research Contributions. He served as chair of the Department of Information, Risk, and Operations Management from 1988 to 1997. He was the Philip J. Rust Visiting Professor of Business at the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia in 1999. Dr. Dyer is the former president of the Decision Analysis Society of the Operations Research Society of America [now the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)]. He received the Frank P. Ramsey Award for outstanding career achievements from the Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS in 2002. He was named a fellow of INFORMS in 2006 and received the Multiple Criteria Decision Making Society’s Edgeworth-Pareto Award in 2006. Dr. Dyer has consulted with a number of companies concerning the application of decision and risk analysis tools to a
variety of practical problems, including the Jet Propulsion Laboratories, the Rand Corporation, and the Department of Energy. He has published three books and more than 60 articles on risk analysis and investment science. His recent articles focus on decision making, including a multiattribute utility analysis for the disposition of weapons-grade plutonium in the United States and Russia. He received a BA with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, in physics with minors in mathematics and philosophy and a PhD in business quantitative methods and management from the University of Texas at Austin.
Thomas R. Kitsos served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP) from 2001 to 2004. In 2005, Dr. Kitsos retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, as the Associate Deputy Assistant Administrator for Ocean Services. He is currently a private consultant on national ocean policy, advising the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, the follow-up, foundation-supported organization composed of the members of USCOP and the privately funded Pew Ocean Commission and dedicated to promoting ocean policy reform proposals recommended by the two commissions. His earlier experience included 6 years at the Department of the Interior (DOI), where his primary responsibilities were in the area of energy development on the outer continental shelf. Among other positions, he served as special assistant to the Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, and as Acting Director of the Minerals Management Service. Before his tenure at DOI, Dr. Kitsos spent 20 years on Capitol Hill on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. His final position with the committee was Chief Counsel, advising the Chairman on national ocean and coastal issues, offshore energy development, and environmental and other marine management legislation, including amendments to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act. Dr. Kitsos served as a consultant to the DOI’s Outer Continental Shelf Safety Advisory Board, which submitted a report to the Secretary (September 1, 2010) on the Deepwater Horizon accident. He served as a member of the National Research Council Committee on the Effectiveness of Safety and Environmental Management Systems for Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Operations. He holds BS degrees in education and social science from the Eastern Illinois University and an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Illinois.
Donald Liu is retired Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS). His research focuses on structural dynamics, hull loading, structural stability, and probabilistic methods of structural analysis. He received the Gibbs Brothers Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for outstanding contributions in the fields of naval architecture and marine engineering. He served on the National Research Council’s Committee on the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 Implementation Review and on its Committee on Naval Engineering in the 21st Century. He serves on the Marine Board
and as a member of the board of directors of ABS. He received a BS from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy; a BS and an MS in naval architecture and marine engineering from MIT; and a PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of Arizona. Dr. Liu was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2011.
Roger L. McCarthy is a private engineering consultant and a director of Shui on Land, Ltd., which is involved in large-scale urban redevelopment in the People’s Republic of China. Dr. McCarthy has substantial experience in the analysis of failures of an engineering or scientific nature. He has investigated the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, the explosion and loss of the Piper Alpha oil platform in the North Sea, the fire and explosion on the semisubmersible Glomar Arctic II, and the rudder failure on the very large crude carrier Amoco Cadiz. Previously, Dr. McCarthy was chairman emeritus of Exponent, Inc., and chairman of Exponent Science and Technology Consulting Company, Ltd. (Hangzhou, China). In 1992, he was appointed by the first President Bush to the President’s Commission on the National Medal of Science. Dr. McCarthy served as a member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future. He received a PhD in mechanical engineering from MIT. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.
Charles E. McQueary is a part-time consultant for the Missile Defense Agency in the Department of Defense (DoD). Most recently, Dr. McQueary served as Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E), with the Office of the Secretary of Defense at DoD from July 2006 until his retirement in May 2009. In this capacity, Dr. McQueary was charged with overseeing the development and implementation of DoD policies and procedures for the testing and evaluation of more than 300 systems valued at several hundred billion dollars. As director, he was a senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense and was tasked with annually reporting to Congress the test results for all 300 programs and systems and with providing policy recommendations. During his tenure, Dr. McQueary led efforts to reorganize OT&E and augment its staff in response to the growing challenges of complex systems and their proliferation. To this end, he also worked to establish new and strengthen existing relationships throughout DoD, the federal government, and private-sector defense industry. He served as the first Under Secretary for Science and Technology in the new Department of Homeland Security. Dr. McQueary spent 36 years in the private sector directing system design, development, and manufacturing. His professional recognitions include the 2006 National Defense Industrial Association Homeland Security Leadership Award and the 2008 International Test and Evaluation (T&E) Association T&E Professional Award (Allen R. Matthews Award). He has served as an active member on numerous public and professional boards. He is also a member of the proxy Board for Intergraph Government Solutions. Dr. McQueary earned a PhD in
engineering mechanics from the University of Texas at Austin and is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration Scholar. He earned an MS and a BS in mechanical engineering from the same institution and has been named a distinguished engineering graduate.
Richard A. Sears is a consulting professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University. He is also a member of DOI’s Ocean Energy Safety Advisory Committee. During 33 years with Shell Oil Company and Royal Dutch Shell, he held technical and managerial positions including Exploration Geophysicist, Technical Instructor, Economist, Strategic Planner, and General Management. The managerial positions ranged from exploration and research to fully integrated exploration and production business management. He served as chief science and technology advisor to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Mr. Sears received a BS in physics from Stanford University and an MS in geophysics from Stanford University.
Gordon H. Sterling worked for Shell Oil for 35 years in the area of offshore oil and gas development systems and structures. He worked as a Project Engineer, Structural Designer, Research Supervisor, Design and Installation Manager, Production Superintendent, Project Manager, Manager of Major Deepwater Projects, and Director Year 2000 Compliance Project. He was involved with all of Shell’s record-setting deepwater ventures in the Gulf of Mexico, beginning with the three-piece Cognac platform in 1974–1978 (water depth of 1,024 feet), where he served as Design and Installation Supervisor. He was the Project Manager of the Bullwinkle platform (water depth of 1,350 feet, 1985–1988) and then became Manager of Major Deepwater Projects, to whom all of the Shell Offshore, USA, and Deepwater Project Managers reported. These projects included the record-setting tension leg platform series—Mars, Ram-Powell, and Ursa—in 3,000 to 4,000 feet of water, as well as the subsea developments of Tahoe, Popeye, and Mensa (water depth of 5,400 feet). Three of the projects that he worked on, two of which he led, received the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award. Mr. Sterling represented ASCE on the Board of Directors of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) and served as Chairman of the OTC; had a 4-year term on the Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute (COPRI) Board of Governors; served as President of COPRI; and has been on and led other board-level ASCE committees. He has also been active in the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) as Forum and Workshop Chair and as a guest and keynote speaker for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In spring 2007 he gave the Professor Arthur Bock memorial lecture to students and staff at the U.S. Naval Academy. In 2008 he received the Heritage Award for “distinguished service and significant contributions to the development of offshore resources” from OTC. In 2009 he was elected Distinguished Diplomate, Ocean Engineering, by the Academy of Coastal, Ocean, Ports, and Navigation Engineers. He periodically presents a
commercial course on deepwater oil and gas development, consults part time, volunteers for ASCE–COPRI and SPE, and is on a review panel for the Marine Systems Engineering Program of Texas A&M University, Galveston. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of John M. Campbell Holdings Company (an oil and gas training company) and of the Board of Advisors for INTECSEA Engineering (a Worley Parsons international offshore engineering company with division headquarters in Houston, Texas). He received a bachelor of applied science degree in civil engineering from the University of Waterloo and obtained a master of science degree in civil engineering from Lehigh University.
Manuel Terranova is CEO and President of Peaxy, Inc.—a highly distributed software-based file and data management solution—designed for mid-tier and enterprise class customers as well as external cloud. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Regional Operations and Global Sales for the Drilling and Production Unit of General Electric (GE) Oil and Gas. From December 2007 through February 2010, he served as the head of Subsea Production Systems and Commercial Operations at GE Drilling and Production Systems. In that role, Mr. Terranova managed GE’s subsea production equipment portfolio, including subsea trees and controls. From April 2006 through December 2007, Mr. Terranova served as General Manager of GE’s PII Integrity Services. In that role, he served as the business leader for Integrity Engineering, Integrity Management, ThreatScan, and geographic information system software. From April 2002 through April 2006, Mr. Terranova served as the General Manager and Chief Information Officer for Information Management at GE Oil and Gas. From May 2005 onward, he worked extensively on companywide due diligence and acquisition integration activities. From 1999 through March 2002, Mr. Terranova served as Manager of E-Business Strategy for GE’s Corporate Initiatives Group. During 2001 and 2002, he led GE’s SupportCentral effort, a knowledge portal that he cofounded with two other GE employees. Before joining GE, Mr. Terranova served as Internet Program Manager of the Xerox Internet Channel and Marketing Group. He was responsible for designing and implementing ebusiness solutions for Xerox.com. He graduated from Cornell University with degrees in German literature and political science. At the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, he obtained a master’s degree in international economics and international law.
