PreAccident Investigation Podcast

Host Todd interviews his mother, Gyla Conklin, who recounts a true 1933 encounter when her father, Bill Brock, and friends were held up by Bonnie and Clyde near Meade, Kansas. The episode highlights a dramatic rescue at a park, a croquet mallet that saved the day, and a family newspaper account.

Short, vivid, and personal, this episode underscores why recording family stories matters and offers a human look at a famous criminal story.

Todd Conklin talks with Rob Fisher about how leadership, workforce shifts and compassion are reshaping safety and reliability. They explore why organizations must move from fixing problems to improving systems, and how worker engagement becomes the key source of learning.

The episode covers practical approaches—small experiments, better leader conversations, and data from observations (TEDS)—that help leaders act differently without adding more work. They also discuss legacy, cultural change, and why a pull from curious leaders and workers is replacing the old push.

Listen for concrete questions leaders can ask, ways to prototype improvements, and a reminder that compassion leads and safety follows.

This episode recounts a medical emergency that occurred during a large conference and explains how a quick critical incident stress debrief helped restore the group and the organization.

Todd outlines a simple restoration framework—who's hurt, what they need, and who will help—and walks through a seven-step debrief process that turns trauma into learning, supports people emotionally, and improves future response.

Host Todd Conklin interviews Red Bull athlete Will Gadd about adventure sports, recent tragic incidents (a parachute crash in Butler, Mo., a Moab base-jump, and a bungee failure), and how the outdoor world approaches risk.

The episode explores the difference between being robust and being resilient, the limits of individual skill, and how controls, recoverability, and community learning can reduce harm in high‑hazard activities.

In this episode Todd Conklin explores the paradox of procedures: they keep work stable but also limit flexibility. He explains how procedures can be both necessary and constraining in high-risk, high-consequence environments.

Todd highlights the value of incremental safety—making small, thoughtful changes over time—while building communities of practice to better prepare organizations for an uncertain future.

He closes with practical advice: treat procedures as thresholds rather than one right way, focus on learning from everyday work, foster resilient systems, and remember to take care of yourself while having some fun.