Nobody Flies South Alone

All summer, a pair of Mississippi kites has worked the sky above my patio. They arrived in the spring, two gray silhouettes circling on still wings and picking dragonflies out of the air with no apparent effort. Somewhere close by they built a nest and raised their young, and I have had a front-row seat for the whole season.

I did what engineers do: I looked them up.

Mississippi kites spend the summer here and breed here, and in late summer the pairs dissolve into flocks. That change is underway right now. All over Houston, this year's fledglings are on the wing, the gatherings are forming, and in a few weeks they will ride the thermals south through Mexico and Central America to wintering grounds in the heart of South America.

The detail that stayed with me is how the young birds survive that first trip. A first-year kite has never seen the route. It makes the crossing in the company of adults that have, riding the same thermals and feeding on the move, picking up the route in the air beside birds that already know it.

I watched them with more than a birder’s interest.

This spring, after four decades in refining, chemicals, and offshore operations, I left corporate life. I no longer work for anyone but myself. I now have complete creative freedom to do something I have wanted to do for years: pass along what I have learned to the people taking responsibility for hazardous operations today.

Calling that retirement makes no sense to me. My life’s work has always been my passion. The work continues, now on my own terms and with a clear purpose.

The kites gave me a picture of that purpose. I have made the journey. I know many of the hazards along the route, including some learned through difficult experience. I want to spend the coming years helping the next generation make that journey with the benefit of what my generation learned.

In late July, during the same weeks the young kites began flying, the manuscript for Process Safety for Frontline Leaders went to its first reviewers. The book is scheduled for publication this fall, about the time the flocks leave the Texas coast.

That is why the mark of HSE Engineering Press is a Mississippi kite. It sits on the cover of Process Safety for Frontline Leaders, the book I am publishing this fall, and it will sit on everything the press puts out after it. The people stepping onto process units today work in an unforgiving environment, and the surest way to learn the route is to fly it with someone who has.

In a few weeks the sky over my patio will go quiet, the kites strung out somewhere over eastern Mexico, young birds riding the same lift as the ones who know the way. I plan to spend the coming years doing the same work, closer to the ground.

For more about my book and training program, go to my website at HSE2.com