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Keynote Speakers
9th Professional Development Conference & Exhibition

Dr. Majeed Bin Mohsen Al Alawi, Minister of Labour, Kingdom of Bahrain has a PhD in International Relations/UK. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is also author of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Crises of Politics and Legitimacy 1986 and The Military History of the Middle East 1940 - 2000 - 2001. Dr. Al Alawi was a free lance writer in a number of daily newspapers: “Al Sharq Al Awsat” - London, “Al Hayat” – London, “Al Ayam” – Bahrain, “Al Khaleej” – UAE and others. Dr. Al Alawi worked previously in: Bapco, Batelco, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and Ministry of Electricity and Water. He held the position of Assistant General-Secretary for the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Researches, 2001-2002 and Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Nov. 2002 – Jan. 2005. He is the Chairman of the Supreme Council for Vocational Training and Chairman of the Labor Market Regulatory Authority.



Mr. Homood Abdullah Al-Tuwaijri, Executive Vice President, Corporate Control Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) In his current capacity as Executive Vice President of Corporate Control, Mr. Al-Tuwaijri is responsible for SABIC Global Governance and Compliance functions of Internal Audit, Environmental, Health, Safety & Security, Legal and Enterprise Risk Management. Before his present assignment, Mr. Al-Tuwaijri was Vice-President of Petrochemicals Coordination; and prior to that he was Vice-President of Corporate Finance. Mr. Al-Tuwaijri graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a master’s in industrial engineering in 1983.



Nina Wrightson is Chairman of the Trustees of the British Safety Council. Nina has undertaken a wide range of roles and responsibilities in Health, Safety and Risk Management over the course of her career including as a Regulator, Senior Manager in the private sector and Director of a major UK plc employing 23,000 staff. Previously Nina served as President of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and Chair of the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (ROSPA) National Health and Safety Committee. Nina currently serves as a Non-Executive Director with the NHS Litigation Authority and the Yorkshire Ambulance NHS Trust. Nina was awarded the OBE in 2005 for services to health and safety.



Mohammad G. Al-Zahrani earned his Bachelors degree in Petroleum Engineering at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette In 1985. In 1997 he became Operation Superintendent in the Ras Tanura Producing Department. Between 2000 and 2005 he held a number of managerial positions in the Northern Area Oil Operations. In May 2006 he was appointed President and CEO of Saudi Aramco subsidiary Aramco Gulf Operations Co (AGOC) in Khafji. Mr. Al-Zahrani was named general manager of Drilling in September 2008 and more recently in May 2009 he was appointed as Executive Director, Safety & Industrial Security.



Chris Patton , CSP is the current American Society of Safety Engineers President. He is a Principal Safety, Health and Environmental Engineer for Covidien in St. Louis, Missouri. He provides corporate SH&E oversight and support for their Pharmaceutical and Respiratory divisions, including 16 manufacturing plants, 3 R&D Facilities, and 37 Nuclear Pharmacies. Patton has held SH&E positions in manufacturing, utilities, environmental remediation, and environmental regulatory agencies. He has been in the SH&E field for over sixteen years. Chris holds the Certified Safety Professional designation. Patton was twice awarded the Water Environment Federation Safety Award. He was honored with the Safety Professional of the Year award by his local ASSE chapter in 2004 and received the Charles V. Culbertson Award for outstanding volunteer service to ASSE in 2007.



Dr. Leonard Yong (PhD; MEd; B.Sc; DAPA) is Senior Euromatech Consultant. He taught for more than 20 years in the University of Malaya before retiring as Professor in the Dept of Educational Psychology & Counselling. Professor Yong has extensive cross-cultural experience in consulting and research for agencies and companies in the Middle East, Japan, Australia, and the Asian region. His clients include Petronas, Maybank, Intel, Motorola, Malaysian Ministry of Health, Malaysian Ministry of Women, Family & Community Development, Saudi Arabia Government, Thai Reuters, Kuwait Petroleum Company and Oman PDO. Professor Yong has gained international recognition for his work on the creativity of Malaysians. He was awarded the 1992 Fulbright-ACLS/MACEE Award to undertake research on the creativity of Americans.



Mr. Bill Sims attended The University of South Carolina. He is the President of the Bill Sims Company, Inc. For more than 40 years the Bill Sims Company has created behavior-based recognition programs that have helped large and small companies to inspire better, safer performance from their employees and increase profits. More than 1,000 firms have benefitted from consulting with Mr. Sims and he is currently writing a book based on these experiences. He receives requests globally to speak on the subject of human behavior change, garnering extremely high ratings as a keynote speaker in the U.S., Canada, Australia, South Africa, Greece, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. In the past 12 months he has spoken at the Saudi Council of Engineers in Saudi Arabia, IOSH in Scotland, ASSE, RMA Rubber Manufacturing Association, and The WA Safety Conference in Canada.



Dr. Mike Williamsen is a nationally recognized workplace safety consultant with more than 25 years of safety and business change management experience. His background includes serving in Engineering, Operations, and Safety Manager positions for companies such as Frito-Lay, Inc. and General Dynamics. In 1985, Mike teamed with safety author Dr. Dan Petersen for three years to develop and implement a nationwide safety accountability and continuous improvement system that helped companies reduce injuries at a rate of 80% within two years. Since that time Mike has applied these and other high-impact safety approaches with similar success to other Fortune 500 companies, such as General Dynamics, Baxter Healthcare, Morton Salt, Rohm and Haas Co., and Smurfit Stone Container Corporation.



David Moore is the President and CEO of the AcuTech Consulting Group, a process safety and security consulting firm based in Alexandria, VA. Mr. Moore was the lead author of the AIChE CCPS® “Guidelines for Managing and Analyzing the Security Vulnerabilities of Fixed Chemical Sites,” the security guidelines for the American Petroleum Institute (API), and the API/National Petrochemical and Refiners Association Security Vulnerability Assessment Methodology. He serves in various capacities to advise the DHS on chemical security management and vulnerability assessment, including new DHS Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards.