Woody Epstein, from Scandpower Risk Management Inc., has been a probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) consultant, manager, mathematician, and technical advisor for large organizations, both public and private since 1983.

He is best known for his risk assessment software, Riskman®, and his work on the risk assessment of the Abandoned Chemical Weapons in China.

His risk career started at the Management Analysis Company in 1983, where he created RiTSE, a 5th generation software which simulated reactor trips at nuclear power plants. He has been with PLG/EQE/ABSC since 1986, when he was on the team for the PSA of the NASA space shuttle (SST) after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. He took a few years off in the 1990s to be a teacher in the mathematics department at the Midland School in Los Olivos, California.

Over the years, Woody has used his PSA abilities for nuclear power, aerospace, and extreme risk projects. His expertise includes risk assessment software development, project management, modeling and simulations, mathematical techniques for risk assessment, sales and marketing of risk technology, software risk assessment, and advanced research in risk assessment technology.

Woody started working in Japan for ABSC in 2003 when he won the Abandoned Chemical Weapons (ACW) project for ABSC and served as the technical manager. The project was done for the Japanese Cabinet Office from 2003- 2007.

In 2009, he won the Preliminary System Safety Assessment project for Mitsubishi’s new regional jet type certification. As project manager, he directed a team from ABSC and Alejo Engineering.

He received a Smithsonian award for the development of innovative software systems in 1989, is one of the founders of the Open PSA Initiative, and is a Core Group Member of the Resilience Engineering Group.