Advisory Board

Michael G. Dreznes retired on December 31, 2020, as the Executive Vice- President of the International Road Federation (IRF), a position he assumed in February of 2012. Mike spent the last 35 years working to make the roads safer around the world. He started his career at Energy Absorption Systems, Inc. where he introduced the concept of crash cushions internationally. He later continued his quest to make roads safe globally with Barrier Systems, a Lindsay Transportation Safety company. Today he is recognized as one of the world’s leading specialists on roadside safety promoting the concept of “Forgiving Roads.” He has conducted multiple road safety training seminars on roadside safety, work zone safety, vulnerable user safety and road safety audit in more than 70 countries around the globe.

Michael was the Co-Chairman of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) AFB20 (2) Roadside Safety Subcommittee on International Research Activities for 18 years until he stepped down in 2019. He is Co-Chairman of the United Nations Road Safety Collaboration (UNRSC) Decade of Action Pillar 2: Safer Roads and Mobility Project Group, and a member of the PIARC Road Safety Technical Committee 3.2 Design and Operation of Safer Road Infrastructure.

In January 2015, Michael was named the winner of the TRB AFB20 Roadside Safety Design Kenneth Stonex Lifetime Achievement Award. In October 2020 the Puerto Rico Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) awarded him with their 2020 Road Safety International Ambassador Award.

Since he retired, Michael is spending his time conducting “Shaka Cool School” e-learning classes for his 10 grandchildren and planning monthly trips with his wife of 48 years, Margaret.

Richard Finch retired as CEO of Tough Logistics in mid 2022, a company he set up nearly eight years ago after a lifetime career in Shell, providing discreet Strategic and Tactical logistics solutions for global clients operating in environmentally and security sensitive locations.

Started his career as an officer in Her Majesties Royal Air Force (RAF) as a graduate Supply Branch entry officer at RAF Cranwell after acquiring his honors Geography degree from Queen Mary College, London University. Richard joined the United Kingdom’s Air Movement Squadron, leading a Mobile Team, and operated globally. Upon leaving the RAF, he joined Shell Group Materials and was based in Den Hagg, Netherlands as a member of the international group of managers supporting Procurement and Logistics operations. He was posted to UK (Aberdeen & London), Venezuela (Maracaibo), Nigeria (Port Harcourt) and Bangladesh (Dhaka) and many years in Den Haag. His role took him to many regions from Alaska to Peru to China.

Richard specialized in Logistics and was involved in many new country single string drilling entries and mega projects from the Arctic to the Equator both ‘On and Offshore.” He was the first HSE manager to become the SIPM Corporate HSE Logistics Safety Adviser covering road, marine and aviation safety. During his tour he supported the development of the first Road Safety Case (post Piper Alpha) and development of the Shell Group Road Transport Safety Management Guidelines and Vehicle Standards. He was Shells representative on the Oil and Gas Producers Forum serving on the Road Safety Group.

In his role, Richard became aware of ASIRT’s country reports and supported ASIRT in developing new and updated Road Safety Reviews to support Shell’s mega project activities. In 2013, ASIRT awarded Richard with the Global Corporate Conscience Award.

Bill Frederick is Founder and Principal of Lodestone Safety International and the Director of Program Safety for the Guarini Institute at Dartmouth College. He served as Director of Safety at The School for Field Studies (SFS) for eight years, as Project Leader for the Forum on Education Abroad’s pilot incident database and as Co-Chair for several consecutive Forum Standards Institutes on Health, Safety, and Security. He has led numerous international safety reviews and worked for 16 years with Outward Bound. As a Senior Instructor and faculty committee member for Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA), he has taught emergency medicine to educators, rescue teams and international service organizations in more than a dozen countries and designed WMA’s Travel Medicine First Aid course. He has been an Emergency Medical Technician (NREMT) since 1988 and received a Certificate in Travel Health from the International Society of Travel Medicine in 2011.

Bill holds a B.A. in psychology from the University of Colorado and an M.Ed from Harvard University.

Marc Grossman is an American former diplomat and government official and served as United States Ambassador to Turkey, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

He was most recently the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and is currently a Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, a business consulting and lobbyist firm of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, and a member of the German Marshall Fund Board of Trustees.

Until 2015, he served as the inaugural Chair of the Board of Advisors of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he serves as a practitioner faculty member. He is a member of the advisory board for Washington, DC-based non-profit America Abroad Media.

Ambassador Grossman is the Chairman of the Board of the Senior Living Foundation of the Foreign Service. He also serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and as a Trustee of the University of California Santa Barbara Foundation. He is a member of the Board of the C&O Canal Trust.

Stuart E. Jones is an American Diplomat, currently serving as President, Regions and Corporate Relations at Bechtel.

Stu leads Bechtel’s international and domestic government relations and corporate communications as president for regions and corporate affairs. He joined the company in 2018 as region president for Europe and the Middle East. He assumed his current role in 2019.

Before joining Bechtel, Stu served for three decades as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.  His domestic and international assignments included acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for the Bureau of Near East Asian Affairs, ambassador to Iraq, and ambassador to Jordan.

Stu also served as deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy, Iraq, and deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, Cairo.  Other foreign tours include Turkey, Colombia, and El Salvador.
Hailing from Philadelphia, Stu is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Duke University. He is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Marjorie Lemmon has been the Risk Manager at Yale University since June 2003. Prior to that, she was the Risk Manager for Ann Taylor Stores Corporation for almost 11 years. Her responsibilities at Yale University include oversight of all of the operational risk management activities and initiatives throughout the campus. Before moving into risk management, Marje began her career as an underwriter for two different insurance companies, including underwriting national construction accounts and universities. Marje served as URMIA’s President from 2014-2015. She co-Chairs the 2019 Annual Conference Committee and the Honors Committee, is a member of the Leadership Development Committee and is a past Chair of the URMIA Northeast Regional Conference Committee and the IAAC. She has presented at various annual and regional conferences. She has also served on URMIA’s GRAC and PDC committees. Marje has been a member of the governor-appointed State of Connecticut Insurance and Risk Management Board since 2000. This board oversees the risk management and insurance issues of the state, and she is is the longest tenured member.

Marje earned her undergraduate degree from Smith College and her MBA from the University of Hartford. She has obtained the Associate in Risk Management (ARM), Associate in Underwriting (AU), Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), and Certified Risk Manager (CRM) designations.

Stein Lundebye holds a B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering, specializing in highway and traffic engineering. He has pursued engineering problems within the field of highway/traffic engineering and road safety management continuously throughout his entire professional career that includes more than 50 years of planning and engineering experience on a variety of road safety and traffic engineering projects in Europe and in developing countries in Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia. Has considerable experience in project coordination within the field of transportation, and he is very familiar with the procedures of various government highway departments and international lending organizations.

Stein’s assignments have involved various levels of professional and managerial responsibility from Project Engineer on transportation projects to Project Manager for feasibility studies, detail design, various traffic engineering projects and implementation of major road construction projects. Throughout his career, he has been committed to road safety engineering, road safety management and introduction of comprehensive community road safety initiatives in developing countries.

Stein has received the following individual road safety awards: The Edmund Ricker Traffic Safety Award by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) in 2000, the Norwegian Society of Traffic Safety’s Gold Pin in 2000, the Aron Sobel Guardian Award by ASIRT in 2001 and the IRTE/Prince Michael International Road Safety Award (2003). He was also a key member of the World Bank teams, which was awarded the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Road Safety Award for 1995, a member of the Road Maintenance Initiative (RMI) team awarded the World Bank President’s first Award of Excellence in 1996 and a member of the WHO/World Bank team awarded the Prince Michael International Road Safety Award 2004 for the World Health Report: “Road Traffic Injury Prevention.”

Director
Office of Global Safety and Security
Northwestern University

Dr. Margie Peden, BSc Nurs, BSc Med (Hons), PhD, is an internationally recognized injury epidemiologist. She was educated in South Africa and holds degrees in nursing and epidemiology. She worked as an ICU/trauma nurse for 10 years before taking up a research position at the SA-MRC in 1993. In 2000 she moved to WHO in Geneva, where she headed the unintentional injury prevention team for 17 years. She was the executive editor of both world reports on Road traffic injury prevention (2004) and Child injury prevention (2008) and authored multiple other WHO documents on road safety, adolescent health, alcohol, and other unintentional injuries. She led WHO’s contribution to the multi-million-dollar Bloomberg Initiative for Global Road Safety in 10 low-income countries for 10 years and coordinated the publication of the first three Global Status Reports on Road Safety. Margie is currently the head of The George Institute’s injury program and co-directs the WHO Collaborating Centre on Injury Prevention and Trauma Care.

Margie holds a conjoint senior lecturer position at the University of New South Wales (Australia) and is honorary faculty in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins University (USA). Her academic interests include identifying and evaluating appropriate interventions to prevent child injuries in low-income settings and implementing frameworks to improve trauma care. She is particularly interested in using participatory methodologies, empowering early career researchers and developing equitable partnerships in order to develop and implement good practices and policies for the most vulnerable in society. She currently co-chairs the Africa Advisory Group at The George Institute, is Chair of the Global Advisory Board for the Road Safety Research Unit at the University of Malawi and Vice-Chair of the Road Traffic Injury Research Network. Margie is a trustee of Eastern Alliance for Safe and Sustainable Transport (EASST), patron of the UK Rescue Organization and a board member/advisor for ASIRT and International Road Victims’ Partnership (IRVP).

Robert Wexler is the President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace in Washington, DC. He served as a Democratic Member of Congress from 1997 to 2010, representing Florida’s 19th district in the House of Representatives before retiring to lead the Center. Wexler was named one of the “50 Most Effective Legislators in Congress” by the influential magazine Congressional Quarterly and was named to the Forward 50 list as one of the most influential leaders in the American Jewish community.

In 2008, Congressman Wexler served as an advisor on Middle East and Israel issues to President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. In 2012, he served on the President’s reelection Steering Committee and addressed the Democratic National Convention outlining the President’s policies related to Israel.

Throughout his tenure in Congress, Wexler was an outspoken advocate for the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel and a leading proponent of Israel’s right to self-defense and the need for a just and comprehensive resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. He traveled on numerous congressional delegations to the Middle East and met with the leaders of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, and the Palestinian Authority. At President Clinton’s invitation, he was the only member of the House of Representatives present during the signing of the Wye River Peace Agreement. In addition, Wexler was one of two Congressmen to travel to the International Court of Justice at The Hague to oppose the Palestinian case against Israel’s construction of a security barrier.

Congressman Wexler served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe, a senior Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and a member of the Middle East Subcommittee. Wexler worked to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, build security and economic bonds with the European Union and the nations of Europe, and help guide the economic and political development of the former Soviet States. Wexler served as an American representative to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and was the co-founder of the Caucus on U.S.-Turkish Relations, the Taiwan Caucus and the Indonesia Caucus. He was also an active member of the India Caucus. In addition, Wexler served as a senior member of the Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.