Dr. Ralph Soule is a Nuclear Engineer and expert in High Reliability Organizing (HRO). He is interested in doing applied qualitative research with organizations engaged in high reliability work.

He writes out of genuine curiosity, trying to think critically about topics of interest. The choice of topics that he writes about springs from an intrinsic desire to reflect on his active duty Navy experience. He wrote many point papers and memos to file on active duty to make sense of that experience. The blog is just another way to do it now that he has a better understanding of related academic research.

Dr. Ralph is not trying to fix anything that he writes about. For example, Navy ship depot maintenance isn’t fixable in the common sense of the word. It is possible to understand it better, however. When he was on active duty, his main goal was to survive first and second make things a little less terrible for himself and others. That could be considered a low bar. Sometimes it is the best you can do.

Dr. Soule graduated from the United States Naval Academy with distinction in May 1982, earning a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.  He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning Master of Science Degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Electrical Engineering in 1991. Captain Soule retired from the United States Navy in 2011 after twenty-nine years of naval service. In the Navy, he specialized in applying High Reliability principles to the operation, testing, maintenance, and repair of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines and was sometimes accused of reading too much. He was awarded a Doctorate of Education (Ed.D.) by the George Washington University in 2016.

Dr. Soule served on five U.S. Navy warships and in a variety of shore assignments during his career as a naval officer. He was the Commanding Officer of Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion, and Repair, US Navy, Newport News, Virginia 2007 to 2010, leading the shipyard – government team transition of the USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH (CVN 77) and the USS NEW MEXICO (SSN 779) from collections of steel and wire to fleet assets.

Dr. Soule enjoys applying innovative safety and high reliability approaches to complex, high-consequence work. He is an accomplished project leader, educator, mentor, and performance coach. He consults on issues related to engineering management, technical judgment, decision-making, and organizational safety. He is interested in qualitative research in organizational learning, accelerating proficiency, human resources development, resilience, and high reliability. He believes that any human-machine system that is intolerant of human error is a bad design.

Dr. Soule lives with his wife in Albuquerque, NM. They have two adult sons. He enjoys running in the very thin air of Albquerque, camping, and traveling. He can be reached through Twitter (ralphsoule), email (rt+lastname@hotmail.com, replace “lastname” with the one in this paragraph and don’t use the “+" -> that is just to throw off bots), and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphsoule.