Cranbrook, BC · Industrial Systems Leader

Building Better Systems
for People Working in
Demanding Environments.

Mechanical Engineering Technologist. Industrial operations professional. Systems thinker. Former world champion. A career spent at the intersection of technical precision, human performance, and meaningful work.

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25+
Years Industrial & Field Ops
129.94
km/h Former World Record
2×
Former Guinness Record Holder
The Common Thread
Whether inside a pulp mill or on a mountain descent at highway speed, I've always been drawn to environments where clarity, trust, and precise execution determine the outcome.

That's not a coincidence. It's a philosophy that took me 25 years to articulate - and that I've been living the whole time.

Industrial operations and world-class athletic performance look different on the surface. One involves process maps, control rooms, and safety-critical documentation. The other involves helmets, mountain roads, and split-second decisions at 130 km/h. But the underlying discipline is identical: you understand the system deeply, you reduce uncertainty wherever possible, you prepare until preparation becomes instinct - and then you execute.

The mills I've worked in are full of intelligent, capable people who deserve better systems - clearer documentation, more accessible procedures, tools that respect their expertise rather than obscure it. That's what drives me. Not metrics. Not certifications. The belief that good systems make demanding work safer, more dignified, and more meaningful.

Domain 01
Industrial Systems

25+ years across pulp & paper, chemical processing, renewable energy manufacturing, and mining equipment - from hands-on DCS operations to leading mill-wide documentation modernization, P&ID redevelopment, LOTO system overhaul, and digital twin implementation strategies.

Domain 02
Operational Leadership

Bridges frontline technical work with organizational strategy. Known for building documentation frameworks, training architectures, and safety systems that actually get used - because they were designed with the worker in mind.

Domain 03
Human Performance

IGSA World Champion. Former 2× Guinness World Record holder - records since surpassed, but set through the same systematic preparation that defines every project. A parallel career that built deep fluency in high-consequence risk management and composure under pressure - skills that translate directly to complex industrial environments.

Industrial processing environment
The Approach

How I
Think About
Industrial Work

Most industrial improvement efforts fail not because the technology is wrong, but because the human system surrounding it is ignored. Good operational design starts with the people doing the work.

Documentation as Infrastructure

SOPs and P&IDs aren't paperwork - they're the operating system of an industrial facility. When they're outdated, inconsistent, or inaccessible, the gap gets filled by tribal knowledge that walks out the door every time a senior operator retires. Building documentation systems that are accurate, navigable, and built around how workers actually think is foundational, not optional.

Human reliability research makes this concrete. Studies referencing the SPAR-H framework (used in nuclear and petrochemical industries) identify a critical trust threshold: once an operator encounters errors in a procedure - even if the document is 90–95% correct overall - perceived reliability collapses entirely. Research consistently shows that more than half of operators will abandon the document and revert to memory, tribal knowledge, or informal shortcuts. This isn't a discipline problem. It's a systems design problem. A procedure that is almost right is, operationally, wrong.

Core Belief 01
Safety Through Clarity

Most safety failures aren't failures of intention - they're failures of information. A worker who can't quickly find the correct lockout procedure, or who's working from a P&ID that doesn't match the current configuration, is working in a system that sets them up to fail. The goal isn't more procedures. It's clearer ones.

Core Belief 02
The Living Facility

Industrial plants are not static. They're modified, expanded, and repaired constantly - which means as-built drawings become fiction within months of a major turnaround. Digital twins built from LiDAR scans create a persistent, accurate record of the facility as it actually exists, not as it was designed. That's the foundation for every meaningful modification decision.

Core Belief 03
Respect Worker Intelligence

The operators, technicians, and maintenance crews in a heavy industrial facility carry an extraordinary depth of knowledge about how the systems actually behave. The best operational improvements surface and codify that knowledge - they don't replace it with external consulting frameworks that disappear with the consultant. Real operational intelligence is built from the inside.

Core Belief 04
T→C
Training Architecture
Lead Time to Competency Is an Operational Risk Metric

In high-turnover industrial environments, every day between onboarding and independent, safe operation is a live exposure window. Closing that window requires training architecture that is precise and noise-free: a single, verified path through exactly what is required - tactical steps through known checkpoints, not open-ended instruction that degrades with each informal retelling. When tribal knowledge substitutes for documented procedure, the second generation learns a distorted version. The third learns guesswork. Effective industrial training is not a choose-your-own-adventure. It is deliberate, auditable, and leaves nothing to interpretation.

A Parallel Education

The sport taught me things no classroom does. It just took 20 years to translate them.

Downhill skateboarding at the elite level is not a reckless pursuit. It's one of the most systems-dependent disciplines in sport. The margin for error at 130 km/h is essentially zero - which means every component of the system, from equipment setup to site analysis to warm-up protocol, has to be engineered, not improvised.

That commitment extended to custom technology. For my record season and GWR attempt, I partnered with Recon Instruments to develop a custom heads-up display integrated into the helmet - real-time speed, run data, and performance metrics visible without breaking tuck position. Bringing HUD technology from military and aviation into downhill racing was a first in the sport, and a direct expression of the same systems-thinking applied in industrial work.

What I didn't fully understand at the time was that I was developing a methodology. A framework for operating in high-consequence environments that would become the foundation of how I approach industrial work: map the system, reduce the variables, prepare until the preparation disappears, then execute without hesitation.

The world record wasn't the most important thing. The approach that produced it was.

Mischo Erban in full aerodynamic tuck during a world speed record attempt
World Speed Record Attempt
129.94
km/h - Former Guinness World Record

Fastest standing downhill skateboard speed at time of setting - a record since surpassed, and all the more meaningful for it. Records exist to be broken. What endures is the systematic approach that produced it: obsessive preparation, precise equipment engineering, and disciplined risk calibration. The mountain was the test environment. The methodology is the asset.

2011IGSA World Cup Series Champion & NorAm Series Champion
2010Former Guinness World Record - 130.04 km/h standing downhill skateboard speed
2009IGSA World Cup Series Champion · Former Guinness World Speed Record 113 km/h
2007–082× Runner-Up IGSA World Cup Series · ConcreteWave Speedboarder of the Year
2010–15GoPro Sponsored Athlete · Co-Founder, Ronin Trucks
2010–11Recon Instruments - Custom HUD development for racing season & GWR attempt
2004–14Event Director - Vernon Downhill, sanctioned IGSA North American Championship
Where This Is Going

The Future of
Industrial Work

"The next generation of industrial leadership won't just manage processes. It will design them around the people who operate them."

We're at an inflection point in heavy industry. An enormous wave of experienced operators is retiring, taking with them decades of system knowledge that was never captured. Simultaneously, the tools to capture, visualize, and transmit that knowledge - 3D scanning, digital twins, intelligent documentation systems - have become accessible at the facility level for the first time.

The organizations that bridge that gap - that build the systems to retain and transfer operational intelligence while empowering the next generation of workers - will operate safer, more efficiently, and with more resilience than those that don't. That's not a technology problem. It's a leadership and design problem.

That's the work I want to do.

Knowledge Retention

Building systems that capture what experienced operators know before they walk out the door permanently - structured, searchable, and transferable.

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Operational Intelligence

Digital twins, LiDAR as-builts, and live process documentation that reflect the facility as it actually exists - not as it was designed five years ago.

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Human-Centered Design

Documentation, procedures, and systems designed around how workers actually think and move through a facility - not how an engineer imagines they should.

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Safer High-Performance Workplaces

The belief that operational excellence and worker safety aren't in tension - that the same discipline that produces performance produces safety, when the systems are designed properly.

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Open to Conversations
Let's Build
Something
That Lasts

If what you've read here resonates - whether you have a specific role in mind or just want to explore what collaboration might look like - I'd genuinely like to hear from you.

LinkedIn Profile
Background photos: Unsplash.com - free for commercial use under the Unsplash License (Jason Mavrommatis, Daniel Sofinet, Karsten Würth). Athlete photo: © Michel Roy / imageparfaite.com - used with permission. SVG diagrams (P&ID, LOTO, Digital Twin) are original illustrations.