CRA’s Managing Director, Jasbir Sidhu, reaches the ripe old age of 40!

CRA’s Managing Director, Jasbir Sidhu, reaches the ripe old age of 40!  Jas reflects on the past 40 years and his passion for nuclear power and the future for CRA.

"I have always been interested in power and energy.  As a child I spent lots of time with my father striping down car engines and reassembling for my father’s friends.  Looking back, I think my father would have probably got into a lot of trouble from social services as I used to ‘interact’ with petrol (for washing carburettors) and asbestos brake shoes on the curb side!  This early introduction into the fundamentals of power engineering, resulted in me studying Nuclear Engineering at Manchester University (Mechanical Engineering just didn’t sound right to me!).  Following qualification, I was employed by Electrowatt Engineering Services (Horsham, West Sussex) as a graduate consultant and learnt about PRA.  These were very informative years for me.  Three years later I moved to WS Atkins (Leatherhead, Surrey) where I developed my Nuclear Engineering and PRA/HFA expertise.  In 2000, having recently completed my MBA at Surrey University, along with Garry Cooksley, I set up Corporate Risk Associates to push the frontiers of Operational Risk Analysis.  To be an employer and overnight become responsible for the livelihoods of the valuable CRA team members was a very scary feeling.  However, we knew through lots of hard work we could establish CRA as a niche supplier of operational risk services.  Eight years later we have achieved that goal but looking forward we have lots more to do in order to establish ourselves as “the premier risk management consultancy of the 21st century and beyond."  Developing the next generation of engineers and risk analysts is the key to our future, hence why we are so active in training and development of our junior and senior team members.  Developing the team and our technical offering will be the key to our success over the next ten years.  Will I make it to 50?  Statistically speaking I should do!" - Jasbir