This focus derives from Mr. Hart’s fifteen years as a transportation safety regulator at the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and twelve years at the National Transportation Safety Board, including three years as Acting Chairman and Chairman. The NTSB is the federal agency that investigates transportation accidents, determines what caused them, and makes recommendations to prevent recurrences.

That regulatory and investigatory experience exposed Mr. Hart to the power of collaboration to improve safety while also improving productivity. Hart Solutions LLP applies that collaboration model to improve safety in many potentially hazardous endeavors to which it is applicable.

Preferred: Safety challenges that have stubbornly resisted improvement despite numerous efforts and that warrant out-of-the-box thinking.

The Power Of Collaboration

Process Safety: Since the mid 1990’s the commercial aviation industry has been using a voluntary collaborative approach known as CAST, the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, by bringing all of the key parts of the industry to the table together to work in a collaborative manner to identify and address potential safety concerns.

The CAST approach has been enormously successful and has demonstrated the power of collaboration to improve safety in potentially hazardous industries that consist of a complex array of connected and coupled subsystems. When the previously declining fatal aviation accident rate had begun to “plateau” in the early 1990s – at a rate that many safety experts thought could not be improved much – CAST generated a reduction of more than 80% in that rate in less than 10 years.  CAST has been sustainable and continues to this day because it also demonstrated that, contrary to conventional wisdom that safety improvements usually hurt productivity, safety improvements that result from a collaborative approach can simultaneously improve productivity.

No industry other than aviation has yet applied the CAST all-inclusive collaborative model at an industry-wide level. Although one size may not fit all, much of the CAST collaboration success story is transferable to help improve safety and reliability in many other industries, including nuclear power, petroleum exploration and refining, chemical manufacturing, banks, and healthcare, to name a few.

Workplace Safety: The CAST collaboration success is also transferable to workplace safety – slips, trips, and falls — in all industries, not just aviation. Just as a CAST-type approach helped improve process safety significantly, it can also help significantly improve workplace safety.

Recent Safety-Improvement Activities by Mr. Hart

Washington, DC, Area Subway: Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C., recently created the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission, a three-jurisdictional agency with two Commissioners from each jurisdiction to oversee the safety of the Washington area subway system. Mr. Hart was appointed by the Washington, D.C. City Council to be one of two D.C. representatives, whereupon he was elected by the Commission to be its Chairman.

Boeing 737 MAX: In 2019, Mr. Hart was asked by the Federal Aviation Administration to be an outside independent consultant to lead the Joint Authorities Technical Review. The FAA created the JATR to bring together the certification authorities of 10 countries, as well as NASA, to review the robustness of the FAA certification of the flight control systems of the Boeing 737 MAX and to make recommendations as needed to improve the certification process. The JATR submitted its recommendations to the FAA in October 2019.

Previous Safety-Improvement Activities by Mr. Hart

From 2009 until 2018 Mr. Hart was Chairman, Vice Chairman, and a Member of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), having been nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the Senate. He was previously a Member of the NTSB from 1990 until 1993, having been nominated by (the first) President Bush. The NTSB investigates major transportation accidents in all modes of transportation, determines probable cause, and makes recommendations to prevent recurrences.

Other previous safety-improvement positions include:

• Deputy Director, Air Traffic Safety Oversight Service, Federal Aviation Administration
• Assistant Administrator for System Safety, FAA
• Deputy Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
• Deputy Assistant General Counsel to the Department of Transportation
• Attorney with the Air Transport Association

Education

Mr. Hart has a law degree from Harvard Law School and a Master’s Degree and a Bachelor’s Degree (magna cum laude) in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.

Other

Mr. Hart is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association, and he is a pilot with commercial, multi-engine, and instrument ratings.