September 2020

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under Presidents Gerald Ford and George W. Bush once stated, “As we know, there are known knowns; there are things… Read More »Unknown Unknowns and Project Risk

I’m honored to appear as a guest on Dr. Amritpal Agar’s podcast The Cost of Everything, which is available now! https://lnkd.in/dAwqH6R https://lnkd.in/dC_-mBq https://lnkd.in/dh5Q3kU

One of the best memes I have seen that illustrates the importance of risk management is the image below. As the graphic points out, a… Read More »Risk Management Meme – A Little Planning Now Can Save a Lot of Money

My family and I recently ate a great seafood dinner at a restaurant. The owner came by our table and handed my young son a… Read More »There Ain’t No Such Thing As Free Ice Cream

There are 10 counties in the metropolitan Nashville area. Only three of these counties never issued a mask mandate. Of the others, one (Williamson) let… Read More »Mask Mandates and New COVID-19 Cases in September for Nashville

Both Rutherford and Williamson counties in Tennessee issued mask mandates this summer. Williamson county started theirs on July 8th, while Rutherford county waited until July… Read More »The Impact of Lifting Mask Mandates – A Tale of Two Counties

The mayor of Rutherford County, Tennessee (where my family and I live) just announced he is lifting the mask mandate. This is not the time… Read More »Now is Not the Time to Lift Mask Mandates

During the Renaissance, the humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus compiled a list of proverbs whose title in English is Adages. These were largely compiled from ancient… Read More »The Origins of Risk Management – “Trust Not All Your Goods to One Ship”

There is an old saying in French that translates as “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” This epigram is applicable to… Read More »The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

The study of probability began in France in the seventeenth century. The mathematician Blaise Pascal was friends with two gamblers who were obsessed with a… Read More »Pascal’s Wager – Why Consequence is More Important than Likelihood in Managing Risk