HEACH

Carsten is the last HEACH-member to cross the line of the Big 4-0 (which he may reluctantly admid has happened not too long ago...). He is happily married to a wonderful wife and has two children.

Born slightly over than 40 years ago in the historical city of Augsburg, Germany (Bavaria, to be even more exact), Carsten moved around a lot in Germany until his parents settled in the utmost southern part of The Netherlands, Zuid Limburg. There Carsten went to school, finished his Atheneum (beta) and decided to study mechanical engineering at the HTS in Heerlen. The choice for mechanical engineering was mainly a practical one. Orginally he wanted to do History (alas, no money in that, and Indiana Jones already discovered all the fun stuff!) or Chemistry (presentation at the University sucked), but when these were discarded, Carsten decided to pick something that offered broad enough possibilities for the future.

Within only one year, he hated Mechanical Engineering, at least most of it, and decided he would NEVER in his life go and design moving belts or draw nuts and bolts. Luckily he encountered the field of safety, environmental care and quality during his practical year and decided to search a job in this interesting and always diversifying line of work. Said and done: second letter, first job interview and Carsten was hired as safety advisor!

During his working life Carsten has done various courses and studies to professionalize (like HVK, two years of law school) a healthy dose of common sense (Dutch abbreviation: GBV). Also he always tried to remain a broadly oriented generalist in the field of QSHE, rather than becoming a specialist in a certain technical/safety area. Over the years, his main areas of expertise have become (safety) management systems, turning data from information systems into stearing information for the management, learning from unwanted events, incident investigation and analysis and various subjects concerning occupational safety and health.

As he sees things, management of safety (or quality or environmental care, for that matter) is not as much having things formalised in procedures and handbooks, but mainly a way of life for both the company and the people within it: having the right people doing the right things at the right time. In this approach there is much focus on attitude and behaviour, or culture and competence, to put it into slightly different words.

After nearly 14 years of working within Dutch railways, Carsten and his family decided to set sail for foreign shores, more precisely to the wonderful country of Norway. Here Carsten started worked for the Norwegian Railway Administration, Jernbaneverket, combining his professional QSHE-expertise within railways with his childhood dream of becoming a Viking. Regrettably, after almost 9 months, this adventure had to be terminated again, which brought Carsten back to the low lands and other shores... - off-shore industry actually, starting as HSE(Q) Engineer at Bluewater Energy Service. But, as things go, only to return to his chosen homecountry after little more than a year, picking things up at JBV once more and this time taking the family along!

The picture shows Carsten standing in front of the Kjofossen waterfall, which provides the electrical energy for the famous and spectacular Flåmsbana between Myrdal and Flåm.


A short resumé of Carsten’s working life so far:

October ’92 - April ‘99
NS Materieel Revisiebedrijf Haarlem
Position: Safety advisor and Head of Internal Emergency Services; since June 1996 also leader of occupational safety & health and environmental care group.

Relevant activities included:
May ’99 - August ‘03
NedTrain Services Regio Randstad Noord
Position: Senior advisor of quality, occupational safety & health, environmental care and railway safety.

Relevant activities included:

September ’03 - July ‘06
ProRail Inframanagement, Department of Safety & Environmental Care
Position: Senior advisor of safety, since December 2005 also Clustermanager of the Management systems group within the department.

Relevant activities included:
  • Programme-manager of the safety management system
  • Development and implementation of a safety dashboard and safety KPIs for ProRail
  • Development of the management system for environmental care (including dashboard and KPIs)
  • Assisting the development and implementation of an information system for safety and environmental care (based on Synergi X)
  • Development and implementation of an improvement programme for accident investigation, including the in-company development of a three module course for management and investigators and writing of an “Incident Investigation for Dummies”-like guide for investigators
  • Senior incident investigator; coaching of other investigators within ProRail regions; prime contact to investigators of railway safety inspectorate and national transportation safety board; lead investigator Amsterdam derailments, June 2005
  • Participation in working groups within sector - in collaboration with contractors and/or train operating companies - for improvement of occupational safety of trackworkers and SPAD prevention

August ’06 - April '07
Jernbaneverket, Infrastruktur, Sikkerhet & Kvalitet
Position: Rådgiver for sikkerhets- og kvalitetskompetanse og -kultur

Relevant activities included:
May '07 - July '08
Bluewater Energy Services, HSEQ & RC Department
Position: HSE(Q) Engineer, later Section Head HSEQ Operations Support

Relevant activities included:
August '08 - Now!
Jernabaneverket, Banedivisjon, Sikkerhet & Kvalitet
Position: Seksjonsjef Sikkerhetsdokumentasjon

Relevant activities include:


Hobbies and other activities

Carsten loves to play golf, but admits that he spends not enough time on practising, so he’s not that good, really. But then, he loves to play for relaxation, not for points. Also, what he finds fascinating, is that you play basially against yourself, and not against your opponent! In wintertime he loves crosscountry skiing. Another reason for trying to move up north.

Carsten loves music. Which is a major understatement. Starting in classical music, his main interest has moved during the last 20+ years towards progressive rock and related styles, like Krautrock, jazz-rock, electronic music etcetera. He has quite some collection (another major understatement) in these directions and may be counted among the Top Something of experts in the genre. Some favourite albums:

Besides listening to and collecting the music, Carsten also writes a lot about it. Over the past 15 years he has contributed to various music magazines internationally: Progression (USA), Sophisticated Rock Magazine and Progressive Newsletter (both Germany) and most importantly, Background Magazine for which magazine Carsten even worked as the main editor during the period of 1999 til late 2003. Besides, Carsten wrote and published all by himself a book on the contemporary Dutch progressive rock scene in 1998, “File Under Symfo”. This book is long sold out and out of print, but for the last ten years, Carsten is also working on an international prog-encyclopeadia, which may eventually see the light of day in a few years time (2.000+ pages waiting already).

Other publications (non-music) by Carsten include:

Carsten is also an avid reader, not only trying to keep up about half a dozen of music magazines per month, but always reading 3 or 4 books (both fiction and non-fiction) at the same time. Average goal is to finish at least one book every 2 or 3 weeks. Favourite authors include:

Also Carsten loves cartoons (Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert, Hägar, Scribbly, Bielzenblues, …) and quality comics (no superheroes!).

Finally we should not forget movies. There passes barely a day that you wouldn’t find Carsten quoting lines from the Star Wars cycle… Besides, Carsten is a huge 007 fan and can spell all movies backwards. Other favourites include: