Help us congratulate our first Risk Hero Spotlight recipients
July 2026 Risk Hero honorees (from left) Barry Simays, Justina Geremia, Suzanne Adams, Michael Dunn, and Joseph MacLeod.
Doing the Work on Campus that Goes Unseen
Every day across higher education, those with and without risk management in their job titles make a difference in ways that often go unseen. Their work extends far beyond policies, procedures, and emergency plans—it happens in the informal conversations that uncover emerging concerns, the practical solutions that prevent incidents before they occur, the trusted relationships that foster a culture of risk awareness, and the outreach efforts that share best practices across campuses and throughout the profession.
To recognize these meaningful contributions, URMIA is proud to spotlight its first Risk Hero recipients, individuals nominated by their peers for their passion, expertise, and leadership in advancing higher education risk management. Selected from a group of outstanding nominees, these honorees exemplify the impact risk professionals can have through reducing risk, improving safety, strengthening collaboration, enhancing processes, and serving as respected advocates for the field.
Congratulations to the following Risk Heroes for their contributions to risk management efforts on their respective campuses:
Barry Simays | University of Vermont
Barry Simays is the fire marshal/deputy emergency manager at the University of Vermont, a position he has had for the past five years. In this position, Simays developed and implemented a unified Hot Work Management Program for the university’s 200+ buildings, many of which are managed independently. This initiative overcame complex coordination and compliance challenges by establishing standardized procedures, launching a comprehensive training program, and deploying a mobile-friendly system that enables contractors and building managers to manage hot work permits directly from their phones. He also led campus-wide communication efforts to ensure consistent adoption across all departments and stakeholders.
Through these efforts, Simays has demonstrated deep knowledge of risk management principles, fire safety best practices, and regulatory requirements, while fostering collaboration among internal teams and external contractors. His leadership has materially improved the university’s operational resilience, safety culture, and effectiveness in managing high-risk activities campus-wide.
Justina Geremia | Farmingdale State College
As Farmingdale State College’s risk and compliance manager, Justina Geremia led the development and implementation of a comprehensive new risk assessment process that now integrates directly into the college’s enterprise risk management (ERM) framework. She recognized the need for a more structured, transparent, and collaborative method for engaging departments in identifying and evaluating risks. As part of her process, she:
- Engaged department heads ensuring alignment on purpose, expectations, and their role in the risk assessment process
- Distributed the newly developed Risk Assessment Guide that provides a practical reference to help units understand risk concepts
- Issued a pre-meeting questionnaire to gather preliminary information related to departmental goals, critical functions, and relevant policies or regulations
- Conducted collaborative in-person risk assessment meetings with each department head – and any staff they chose to involve – to facilitate discussion and document results
- Produced individualized risk assessment reports for each department, summarizing risks, observations, and recommended improvements related to internal controls, operational practices, or compliance vulnerabilities
Geremia then consolidated the results into divisional risk registries and facilitated discussions with each vice president to review the risks within their areas. These conversations provided leadership with a clearer understanding of emerging issues, department-level challenges, and enterprise-level risk trends that should inform the college’s ERM priorities.
Her work has strengthened relationships across campus, increased awareness of risk considerations, improved identification of enterprise risks, provided leadership with actionable insights and recommendations, and enhanced the visibility and understanding of the risk and compliance department’s mission and value.
Suzanne Adams, Michael Dunn, and Joseph MacLeod | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A trio of environmental health and safety colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Suzanne Adams, safety officer; Joseph MacLeod, safety officer; and Michael Dunn, senior data analyst – collaborate to move the MIT campus toward a more proactive, coordinated, and data-informed risk management approach.
The group:
- Has led and supported projects that improve safety practices and reduce risk by strengthening the incident reporting process. They created a reporting form that makes it easier for MIT community members to report information about a campus incident that has greatly improved the timeliness, quality, and consistency of incident data collected. This, in turn, has resulted in better triage, handling, and follow-up of incidents and/or potential incidents in addition to identifying risk trends and addressing hazards before they developed into more severe or persistent issues.
- Designed automated monthly risk and claim data reports that have made recurring incidents and emerging hazards easier to identify and monitor.
These examples, as well as others the group has deployed, demonstrate how the EHS department and the office of insurance have improved awareness, accelerated response to recurring hazards, and strengthened the partnership between the two areas.
Nominate Someone You Know
Congratulations to our first campus risk heroes! There’s still time to nominate someone from your campus for our next round of recognitions: the deadline is at the end of the day on August 3rd. Learn more about the recognition process and criteria and nominate for a future round of those deserving of a proverbial superhero cape!
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