I graduated with a degree in Industrial
Engineering from Wayne State University in Detroit. After graduating, I
went to General Electric and completed their Manufacturing Training
Program: six jobs in five plants in four cities in three years. I
worked in jet engines, aerospace and the electric motor business as a
planner, production foreman, manufacturing engineer and quality
engineer. After GE, I went to Israel for 11 years where I worked as a
consultant to the kibbutz movement, private industry, cooperatives of
many kinds of government institutions. I built factories, designed
work, and worked as a manager in a firm bent on producing rotary
engines. Work has been the focus of my professional career. Over the
years, I found that I could design good places to work. I couldn't get
people to jump through the hoop. I needed to learn more about human and
organizational concerns and management systems. I went to UCLA to study
Management and joined the staff of the Center for Quality of Working
Life. I did my dissertation on the nature of human work. UCLA added the
management and organizational sciences to my education. I've taught at
many business schools including UCLA, University of Southern
California, the University of Colorado-Denver, and the Industrial
Engineering Department at Wisconsin in Madison. At Pacific Lutheran, I
teach Operations Management and Management Information Systems to MBA
and undergraduate students. I have also taught in Estonia and France to
graduates students. I've also consulted for US West, Boeing,
Weyerhaeuser and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in the fields of
inventory control, team design, work organization, technology transfer,
and management strategy. I taught in Estonia and France during my
sabbatical and was a Faculty Fellow at Boeing working in the
737/757-assembly plant on cost improvement. These experiences have
deepened my appreciation for the advantages of American society and the
challenges we will face in the world economy. Over the years, I
developed and delivered a special management training seminars focused
on organization design. Customized seminars were delivered to Intel,
Hewlett-Packard, U.S. West, Boeing, and United Telephone. I chaired a
Ph.D. dissertation that developed the first parametric test of Normal
Accident Theory, an important theory of systems and organizational
failure. This research is being extended to financial, managerial, and
operational models in order to identify successful methods to reduce
risk in organizations and their production systems.
My hobbies are gardening and reading. I garden
“thoughtlessly” as a way to relax. I read in many fields that I only
half understand so as to loosen the brain. One of my joys is discovering interesting connections between all
kinds of disparate phenomena.