Late last year, the field of risk analysis lost a pioneer and longtime leader, B. John Garrick. Garrick helped develop the field, first in the nuclear power industry and then later across a wide range of other domains, including global catastrophic risk. He was also a colleague and a friend of GCRI, who contributed to our work as one of our senior advisors. He will be dearly missed by many, including all of us at GCRI.

As histories of risk analysis document (e.g. this and this), the field originated in large part in the early nuclear power industry. Garrick was right in the middle of this with his work at his risk consulting firm PLG, as well as at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, and the Society for Risk Analysis. His early work on the concept of risk remains highly relevant today and is an essential read for anyone new to the field of risk analysis.

Garrick’s contributions to global catastrophic risk are numerous. In 2009, he published the book Quantifying and Controlling Catastrophic Risks, which outlines a framework for applying quantitative risk analysis techniques to catastrophic risk that inspired GCRI’s own work on risk and decision analysis. In 2014, Garrick helped found the Garrick Institute for the Risk Sciences at UCLA. The Institute has hosted annual conferences on GCR and published conference proceedings (see this and this). GCRI participated in these conferences and contributed two papers (this and this).

For further information on Garrick’s illustrious career, please see this from the Garrick Institute.

We at GCRI send our heartfelt condolences to the Garrick family, and we look forward to maintaining a strong relationship with our colleagues at the Garrick Institute.