Dave Fennell
Speaker Expertise
Behavior, Leadership, Risk Management, Safety Culture
Dave Fennell is Safety! Dave has made a career (29 years to be exact) of hands on practical safety to help front line workers go home safely every day and to assist the most senior management develop and sustain approaches to safety that are world class. His work in safety has been used in safety management videos and training that have been used by companies around the world and his work within the Safety Profession earned him the honor of being named Canada’s Safety Professional of the Year. Dave can bring this expertise and energy on safety to your organization, your safety forum or your safety conference. Dave is an engaging presenter who uses humour and entertaining stories to illustrate his points.
Dave Fennell has just retired from his roles as the Senior Safety Advisor for Imperial Oil and the Senior Technical Professional for Safety for ExxonMobil.
Dave has a BSc. from McMaster University in Environmental Sciences, a diploma in Civil Engineering Technology and is a Canadian Registered Safety Professional (CRSP). Dave has developed approaches to safety management that have produced results that are widely recognized and have been featured in safety management videos that have been used by companies around the world. He is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Alberta on Behaviour Based Safety and on Human Factors in Engineering and Safety. He has presented at conferences and safety forums across North America inspiring safety professionals, management and workers on safety and always coming away with rave reviews and creating positive changes on safety.
His latest research projects include the development of standards and materials to prevent steam and hot water burns and work within ExxonMobil on strategies for reducing Risk Tolerance. The video and materials on Risk Tolerance have been used around the world and have been translated into 9 different languages.
Dave was named the Canadian Safety Professional of the Year by the Canadian Society of Safety Engineering in 2013.
Dave says he gets his most creative ideas while snowshoeing and paddling his kayak.
Presentation Description & Topics
Risk Tolerance
Dave has been appropriately labeled as ‘The Risk Tolerance Guru’. He was part of a research project that determined the 10 Influencing Factors of Risk Acceptance and he developed presentations, workshops, training materials, keynote talks and videos on the topic. This material has been used by companies around the world and Dave can bring this practical knowledge to every level in your organization from CEO’s to Safety Professionals to Line Management and Front Line Workers. His Risk Tolerance Presentations include:
- A complete line of keynote presentations
- Awareness presentations
- Presentations to senior management to promote a culture of risk reduction
Understanding and Influencing Risk Tolerance
The Ten Influencing Factors for Risk Tolerance
A presentation on the break through research on risk acceptance complete with approaches on how to identify and address the influencing factors in the work place. Three variations on the topic … one for senior management and executives, one for safety professionals and one for front line workers.
The study of why we accept risk reveals a multitude of intrinsic and extrinsic factors that impact the decisions of individual workers and groups of workers. All of these influencers have been grouped into 10 key categories.
- Overestimating Capability or Experience
- Familiarity with the Task (or Complacency)
- Seriousness of Outcome
- Voluntary Actions and Being in Control
- Personal Experience with a Serious Outcome
- Cost of Non-Compliance
- Over Confidence in the Equipment
- Over Confidence in Protection and Rescue
- Potential Profit & Gain from Actions
- Role Models Accepting Risk
Human Factors in Safety and Engineering
An introduction to the concepts of human factors and the human factors spectrum in a 75 to 90 minute presentation or a full day workshop for Safety Professionals and Professional Engineers.
Safety Thinking Beyond Swiss Cheese and Equilateral Triangles
A high end safety presentation for safety professionals, managers and supervisors on how we need to be thinking about safety in 2017 and beyond.
Twice as Safe by 2020
An inspiring presentation for management and safety professionals on what needs to be done in safety if we want to be twice as safe before 2020.
Flash and Splash
A 75 minute presentation that brings awareness to the issues of steam and hot water burns and addresses the research that has been done on materials that will protect from flash fire, splashes of steam and hot water and still be comfortable. Target audiences are end users of protective clothing in any industry that uses hot water right through to researchers and clothing manufacturers.
A detailed write up on each of the presentations is available by request.