Jordan Casper was driving home from university when she fell asleep at the wheel. It was 2010, and she was in her second year of her Bachelor’s degree at Indiana University. Exhausted from studying late with classmates, she nodded off and hit a guardrail head-on. Though her car was totaled, out of pure luck Jordan managed to walk away physically unharmed.
Mentally, it was a different story — the crash definitely altered her future. “I was lucky that nothing happened to me,” she says, “but after the accident it really hit home how much you need to take care of your own health, how important it is to ensure you’re safe and not taking unnecessary risks that can affect your life.”
A few months after the crash, Jordan heard about a Public Safety degree field focus and found herself signing up. “I was still undecided in my concentration and there was definitely some emotional affliction after the crash,” she says. “We were given a presentation about this new public safety degree field and I automatically said yes.”
And so, in 2012, while finishing her degree in criminal justice with a new focus in public safety management, Jordan spent six weeks in Spain at the Universidad Publica de Navarra doing an intensive study abroad program where she studied the Economic Evaluation of Health, Safety and Environmental Issues of the USA and EU. At the end of the course, her passion for the subject was set in stone.
Quashing stereotypes
Jordan took on various public safety internships in Indiana while finishing her studies and, as soon as she graduated, landed a full time position with Siemens in the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) department in Doha, Qatar. Now promoted to Country EHS Officer, she’s been based in Doha for five years.
Her remit involves everything under the three pillars of EHS (Environment, Health, Safety) and beyond. Through site visits, inspections, audits and more, she and her team are responsible for ensuring employees and contractors are healthy and safe while working for Siemens. . “I’m very passionate about what I do, almost in an unhealthy way,” she says, laughing.
But not everyone shares her zeal. “When I talk about health and safety, people often sigh or roll their eyes and don’t want to talk about it,” she says. “But most people don’t know what EHS does or think the role must be boring, filled with repetitive procedure and form-filling, when in fact the reality can be quite different. I try in my everyday life to ensure that we make the health and safety environment fun. It doesn’t have to be a mundane job and it doesn’t have to have a mundane feel when you talk about it.”
Preparing for the worst
She loves the practical elements of her role, including training and gap analyses. “Sitting with your team discussing and looking at statistics and doing gap analyses are really important,” she says. “They help you work out the areas that you need to focus on.”
But, says Jordan, “we can’t plan for everything”. She stresses flexibility and being able to think on your feet as being key to success. “You’re never going to get it 100% right,” she says. “Of course, we’re humans, so there will always be human error. We will never mitigate risk to zero.”
She cites the so-called Swiss cheese model from the Siemens Zero Harm Culture program as a way to avoid unknown situations. A model favored by risk analysts, the model suggests that reasons for errors can be considered to be like a block of Swiss cheese — there are many holes in our defenses but very rarely do the holes line up to create a clear passage through the cheese. If systems to prevent risk are layered and stacked side-by-side like multiple slices of Swiss cheese, it is less likely — but not impossible — for accidents to slip through the holes.
“You have to be really flexible,” she says, “and most importantly, you have to be able to take it as it comes. It is definitely a beneficial skill to have and I think this is where you can really thrive if you can handle some uncertainty and adrenaline.”
Working in a foreign environment
Being based in Qatar adds another layer of complexity to the job. “It’s a city that’s developing at a rapid rate,” says Jordan. “I think now it’s the richest country in the world, which is quite interesting. FIFA 2022 is coming and they are literally developing cities where they currently don’t exist. Just to see the growth within five years has been tremendous and amazing and it’s a unique experience living and working in Qatar, as most likely in our lifetime we’ll never get to experience a situation so unique.”
One aspect she finds particularly interesting is working with a strong international community. People from approximately 80 different nationalities work in the office, which can help to provide alternative and varied perspectives at work — and even for life in general.
But what’s really kept Jordan engaged for five years is the knowledge that everyday, she’s making decisions that ultimately can improve people’s lives and perspectives.
“I’m really into making health and safety as fun as it can be,” she says. “So, for example, we have space dedicated in the office for health management, where we have a quiet room, a stretching room, a first aid room and a newly launched ‘Catalyst’ meeting room with stationary bikes, exercise balls and dry erase walls. They’re small things within the company but these small things are shifting mindsets and the way that we work. The tide is changing and this will make a big difference going into the future. We’re talking about being disruptive, agile and innovative, and you can’t do that if you — or we as a company — are stuck in old ways.”
Her role is not just about reducing risk for employees, like many people may believe. Instead, it’s also now about enhancing the health of employees. “It’s a new concept. It is not something that is super accepted at the moment or even in the market or in industries but it is something that is here to stay.”
Ultimately, Jordan stresses that, like all jobs, being a health and safety officer is what you make of it. “To be honest, as an individual, you can make the role as interesting as you want it to be,” she says. “If you believe that it’s a mundane role, you’re never going to approach it creatively.”
Jordan Casper is one of our Siemens alumni. She started her career in Siemens as an intern in 2013, and went on to be the Country EHS Officer for Qatar, where she coordinated environment, health, and safety topics among all business units and projects. Learn more about working with Siemens.
Illustration: John Hitchcox
