Drake McGruder
Senior Associate
Areas of Expertise: EHS strategy and governance, regulatory strategy and compliance, OSHA and EPA compliance, safety and environmental auditing, EHS management systems, incident prevention and root cause analysis, sustainability and environmental performance, EHS metrics, operational and enterprise risk management
Education/Certifications: M.S. in Engineering and B.S. in Biological Engineering, University of Arkansas; Lean Six Sigma Green Belt
Drake is an accomplished environmental, health, and safety (EHS) professional with more than 15 years of leadership experience in manufacturing, operational risk, regulatory compliance, and enterprise EHS management. He has developed and led safety and environmental programs across more than 35 facilities in the food, beverage, glass, and consumer products industries.
Drake’s extensive experience includes occupational safety, environmental and regulatory compliance, operational risk management, EHS management systems, and multi-site manufacturing leadership. He has a demonstrated track record of developing corporate governance frameworks and risk-reduction strategies that deliver measurable performance improvements across complex manufacturing organizations. He has advised executive and plant leadership on complex Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), labor, regulatory, and operational risk matters. Further, he leverages exemplary leadership, organizational, and communication skills to build high-performing EHS teams and influence cross-functional leaders to embed safety into business operations.
Drake has extensive OSHA and workplace safety expertise, including enterprise compliance oversight, incident prevention, root cause analysis, corrective action, workers’ compensation management, regulatory agency engagement, and integration of EHS requirements into capital projects and major maintenance activities. As an EHS leader, he has established management systems, performance standards, and leading indicators that strengthen accountability and embed safety into operations.
Highlights of Drake’s experience include the following:
- Developing and implementing enterprise EHS strategies, governance frameworks, standards, management systems, and performance expectations across multi-site manufacturing organizations.
- Conducting and overseeing safety, environmental, regulatory, and physical condition audits and driving timely closure of findings.
- Leading OSHA compliance programs and advising executives and facility leaders on workplace safety, regulatory obligations, and operational risk.
- Forging collaborative partnerships with senior union leadership centered on shared ownership of employee safety, proactive escalation of critical risks, and sustainable risk reduction through engineering, operational, and behavior-based solutions.
- Reducing injuries and workers’ compensation losses through prevention, medical case management, leading indicators, and strengthened accountability.
- Improving incident investigation, root cause analysis, trend identification, corrective action, and recurrence-prevention processes.
- Managing environmental compliance programs involving air permitting, emissions reporting, wastewater, hazardous waste, chemical security, and regulatory agency engagement.
- Implementing EHS technology and audit management applications.
- Integrating EHS requirements into capital projects, furnace rebuilds, planned outages, maintenance activities, and operational planning.
- Partnering with operations, engineering, quality, finance, legal, human resources, labor representatives, insurers, consultants, and regulators to reduce risk.
- Supporting business continuity, security, food safety, food defense, sustainability, and environmental performance programs.
- Applying Lean, Six Sigma, 5S, Kaizen, and continuous improvement methods to safety, quality, and operational challenges.
Drake is recognized as an industry thought leader in safety and is regularly called upon to advise industry stakeholders on strategies to improve safety outcomes. He holds a M.S. in Engineering and a B.S. in Biological Engineering from the University of Arkansas. His professional affiliations have included leadership roles with the Arkansas Academy of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Manufacturing Executives Association.