Today we celebrate Mark Aravidis (Marine Regulatory & Compliance Lead | Scarborough Development, Woodside Energy), a 2023 Best and Fairest Award winner for is contribution to our Marine Working Group (MWG).
Mark is a former MWG Chairman, who stepped down from the Working Group in November 2023). He championed the review of incident reporting and sharing in the marine community via survey of members. The review findings helped to identify improvements in how the marine industry shares their learning. He's been actively involved in various marine programs and external stakeholder engagement and will be sorely missed.
Q. Congratulations on being awarded a Best and Fairest Award for 2023! Describe your feelings about being recognised for your efforts.
My initial feelings were ones of surprise and gratitude. I felt quite proud to have been recognised by my peers for my contributions to the Marine Working Group and equally honoured to have had the opportunity to work alongside some amazing people that come together to make our industry better.
Q. In your professional opinion, what Safer Together Product, Program or Initiative deserves more attention from industry, and why?
The Managing Survival Craft Operations at Offshore Facilities Guideline.
Lifeboats have been a large part of my everyday role for the past ten or so years and I had done much work within my own company to develop and implement safer ways of working, with the goal of reducing the risks associated with such activities.
This then transferred across to the Safer Together Marine Working Group, led my Michael Desa, and which I supported.
The result has been ground-breaking to say the least.
The industry is starting to benefit from the existence of this Guideline, and many companies are adopting the alternate methods for lifeboat testing into the Basis of Design processes as well as the retrofitting of such approach into existing craft offshore.
Q. What would you say to someone who was considering entering our industry?
DO IT! The resources sector, and specifically the maritime industry is one of the most challenging and rewarding careers that I believe anyone could embark on (however I may be a bit biased).
I have been exposed to so many experiences throughout my career at sea and ashore that simply would not have happened had I had a “normal” job.
Is it hard? Yes 100%, but the reward is proportionate to the effort invested. A career at sea will lead you down a very unique path of teamwork, skills development, personal development, leadership and values development. I would strongly encourage anyone considering this to just do it!
Q. What would be your elevator pitch to someone thinking about joining a Safer Together Working Group?
Safer Together is an organisation that provides linkages to companies operating in the same sector where one of the main goals is to share safety learnings, to develop relationships between companies which wouldn’t normally occur in the “normal” day-to-day course of business, to identify areas of concern within the industry and apply the appropriate resources (from within the industry where the concern exists) to develop a solution which can be applied by all. It is an opportunity to contribute firsthand to the industry in which you operate and to build many meaningful relationships along the way.
Q. Do you have anything else you would like to add?
I understand that the grind of everyday business occupies the greater majority of our mental capacity, and often we don’t recognise the benefits of participating in groups such as Safer Together.
We tend to have good intentions about actively participating in such groups but often “life gets in the way”.
I would challenge you to think a little differently about your approach and perhaps think of it this way - imagine that you were aware of an issue which was occurring in your part of the industry, an issue that was being experienced by all and you think to yourself that you should do something about it, but then in the same thought convince yourself that you are too busy, that someone else is probably working on a solution and that you would be able to add any value, so you carry on.
Several weeks, months, years later you hear that there was a significant event where a person, or several people, were killed.
No one else was working on it, and there was no new solution to the problem, it just wasn’t on anyone’s radar.
How would you feel at this point knowing that you could have taken steps, even if only small ones, to help address the issue?
This is reality and it happens more often than we think and having spoken with people that this has happened to, they convey a great sense of regret and guilt in the role that they chose not to play in keeping each other safe.