About the Guest:

Dr. Ivan Pupulidy is an internationally recognized expert on safety and risk in complex adaptive systems who has transformed how federal agencies and organizations worldwide approach accident investigation. As former Director of Human Performance, Innovation, and Organizational Learning at the U.S. Forest Service, he developed the Learning Review process in 2013—a methodology that replaced the agency's Serious Accident Investigation Guide and has since been adopted across industries from chemical safety to aviation.

Ivan Pupulidy’s Philosophy:

We can blame and punish, or learn and improve—but we can't do both.

Episode Highlights:

🔥 From Fire Lines to Faculty

Ivan traces his extraordinary career journey from mine geologist and exploration geophysicist to Coast Guard pilot, combat aviator, and ultimately to academic and safety thought leader. His experience flying MAFFS tanker missions over wildfires and investigating accidents as both pilot and investigator fundamentally shaped his understanding that traditional accountability models miss the mark in complex, dynamic environments.

🔄 Simple vs. Complex: Why Traditional Safety Fails

Most safety approaches were designed for simple systems but are routinely applied to complex adaptive systems like wildfire fighting, aviation, and industrial operations—and this mismatch explains why the same incidents keep happening. Ivan explains the crucial distinctions between simple, complicated, and complex systems, and why understanding these differences is foundational to effective safety management.

💡 The Learning Review Revolution

The Learning Review fundamentally replaced traditional serious accident investigation in the Forest Service and is now spreading globally across industries. Rather than fact-finding to assign blame, the Learning Review focuses on sensemaking and dialogue—understanding the systemic conditions that influenced actions and mapping why decisions made sense to people at the time.​

📚 Resources

* University of Alabama at Birmingham - Advanced Safety and Engineering Management Program​

* The Learning Review: Adding to the accident investigation toolbox(Pupulidy, 2015)

* U.S. Chemical Safety Board Learning Review on dust hazards (co-authored with Crista Vesel)

Organizations:

* HOP Hub​

* The Taos Institute

Connect:

* LinkedIn: Ivan Pupulidy, PhD​

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