B. John Garrick

March 5, 1930 – November 1, 2020

“SEEK THE TRUTH WITH DILIGENCE”

Dr. B. John Garrick lived a life with purpose and passion, devoting himself to family and career.

Dr. B. John Garrick (John) passed away peacefully surrounded by family on November 1st, 2020, in Newport Beach after complications from a fall. He was 90.

John was born in March 1930 during a severe snowstorm in a small railroad town in Tintic, Utah. His early years were not easy, moving from town to town while his father tried to find work in mining, mechanics, or with the railroads during the great depression. By ninth grade, he had been to nine different schools and the combination of living in uncertainty and poverty during the depression years inspired him to strive for excellence in his education and career. He made the decision to stay in Provo through high school and college, often staying on his own while his parents continued to move. Despite these struggles, John enjoyed eight years of uninterrupted education, established a career path in physics and engineering, formed lifelong relationships with outstanding like-minded scholars, and met and married his lifelong love, Amelia Madson, the year of his graduation, 1952.

John’s early interests were aviation and technology, and while flying was always an interest of his, a physics and engineering leaning took over his career path. He did get a pilot’s license and did a little general aviation flying early in his career. He worked at the Atomic Energy Commission National Reactor Testing Station following graduation and then two years later was admitted to the prestigious Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT), a government school set up exclusively to train nuclear scientists and engineers. He completed his Master of Science and Ph.D. degrees at UCLA, where he first established his trailblazing theory on risk sciences in his Ph.D. thesis. His doctoral research helped build the foundation of probabilistic risk assessment, which is also referred to as quantitative risk assessment or QRA. During these years, John and Amelia moved from Utah to Idaho to Tennessee to Washington D.C. before finally settling in Southern California, where they raised three children.

Dr. B. John Garrick is a distinguished international authority on the development and application of the risk sciences to quantify the risk of catastrophic events of natural and anthropogenic systems for the protection of society and the environment. His accomplishments were founded on his Ph.D. thesis in 1968 on unified systems safety analysis that contributed to a general theory of what is now known as probabilistic risk assessment, sometimes referred to as quantitative risk assessment (QRA). He created the first consulting firm of scientists and engineers totally dedicated to the development and application of QRA to engineered, anthropogenic, and natural threats. The results of the risk assessments not only quantified the risk (uncertainties) in terms of environmental and safety impacts, but importance ranked the contributors to enable effective corrective actions, recovery, and emergency response. Engineered systems included nuclear power plants, chemical and petroleum complexes, hazardous and toxic material handling facilities (e.g., nuclear waste), space and defense systems, aerospace and transportation systems. Natural threats considered included severe storms (hurricanes and tornadoes), extreme flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis, asteroids, and anthropogenic issues such as pollution and climate change. The results of the QRAs performed are a roadmap on how to take corrective action to eliminate threats and how best to manage low probability, high consequence events should they in fact occur. Dr. Garrick participated in many other firsts, including the principal technical reviewer for the issuance of the first commercial license for a civilian nuclear reactor, the Vallecitos boiling water reactor, and the director of the first probabilistic risk assessment of a commercial nuclear power plant in the U.S., the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1993, one the highest honors bestowed on an American engineer, for “making quantitative risk assessment an applied science and a fundamental part of engineering design.”

John dedicated his life to his scientific pursuits, but first and foremost, he valued his family. His greatest pleasures were found in both quiet evenings at home and traveling the Western US with his beloved wife, as well as spending time exploring the beaches, mountains, and deserts with his children and grandchildren. He instilled a passion for learning in his progeny, and also set up scholarships and foundations to ensure education was available to students in similar situations to his own humble beginnings.

John was preceded in death by his parents, Morrison Hamilton Richard Garrick and Zelma Hoffman Garrick, and his brothers Eldred and Ilyn Garrick and sister, Donna Garrett. He is survived by his wife, Amelia, and three children, Robert Garrick, John Garrick (Laura), Ann Garrick Albertson (Wyatt), as well as five grandchildren, Megan Armstrong, Tara Allen, Tyler Albertson, Amanda Garrick and Jake Garrick and seven great grandchildren.