Feature
PRACTICE
Second front It may not be called risk management on the ground, but for military personnel, managing difficult situations is a daily reality. IRM’s decision to sign the Armed Forces Covenant aims to help more exservice personnel to thrive in the risk profession BY ARTHUR PIPER
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hen Sarah Christman was in her early twenties, she was training to be a surface warfare officer on USS Rushmore, a landing ship dock carrying 300 sailors and roughly the same number of US marines. She was responsible for driving the ship, taking care of it when it was in port and getting the marines onto a beach shortly after air support had ended, if the need arose. A few years later, she was finishing her nuclear qualifications on an aircraft carrier deployed in support of Operation Noble Anvil and Operation Southern Watch. While the roles were very different, they had one thing in common – there were always more jobs to go around on the ships on which she served than there were people to do them. “I had at least four or five different jobs at any given time,” recalls Christman, CMIRM, who is now risk director UK and Ireland at Equifax and TDX Group and an IRM board member. She may have been responsible for the combat information centre, but at 23 years old she also drove the ship, stood watch, managed people and served as the intelligence officer and public affairs officer – at the same time as studying for naval qualifications. “The ability to manage several jobs within your own
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The ability to manage several jobs within your own head and organise your time around the fact that you have those duties to do alongside each other defines the life of anyone in the military
Enterprise Risk
