Staff Profile
Dr Aaron Gracey
Dr Aaron Gracey is the Head of Emergency Management, Operational Security and Police Liaison for the UK Rail Infrastructure Manager. As part of building on his research, Aaron is also the owner of Squared Apples Ltd, which is focused on developing better awareness of resilience within UK industry. He is also a visiting lecturer at the New Buckinghamshire and Southampton Universities, where he lectures on Resilience and Continuity as part of the teaching staff. He has previously taught at the UK Resilience Centre, part of the University of Wolverhampton’s Arts, Business and Social Sciences faculty.
Within Network Rail he is currently heading up the national program to develop an operational resilience framework across the business. He is also regarded as an industry subject matter expert and is supporting the Department for Transport in developing an industry resilience framework. In 2022 -2023, Aaron led the cross-industry planning team that prepared the industry for a potential sustained disruption to power, working closely with energy providers, government departments and other industry partners. He is currently leading a cross-industry drive to build better industry resilience and is the programme manager for the implementation of a Resilience Culture in Network Rail.
Prior to entering the rail industry, Aaron served for 18 years in the UK Armed Forces in resilience, crisis management, and operational planning and assurance roles. He has served as a Troop Commander managing a team of 30 personnel with equipment valued at over £40m before then managing a training team of 20 soldiers and officers delivering the recruitment training for 300 new recruits. On completion of his Artillery Commander’s and senior Gunnery Instructor’s course he took over as a senior Artillery instructor, delivering training to senior commanders within the armed forces in the co-ordination of air, aviation and artillery fire on the battlefield. During this time, also introduced virtual reality training into the mainstream training framework, delivering an annual saving of £350m. During his military service he deployed on operational tours in Kosovo (1999), Northern Ireland (2003) and Iraq (2004-05). He left the regular service in May 2012 and joined the Army Reserves.
He is currently a Lt Col with 100 Regiment Royal Artillery, supporting the UK regular brigades and formations. As an Educational Training Services (ETS) officer, he is heavily involved in the development of military education and learning, having been involved in 1st Party audits of training establishments, policy development, strategic business intelligence frameworks and the setting up of the MoD Apprenticeship programme.
He is also the Vice-chair of the UK Resilience Association and is a certified Business Continuity Practitioner for the Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI), and forms part of the DRI (UK) training delivery team. He has supported the Cabinet Office and BSI in the development of the UK’s revised Organisational Resilience standard (BS:65000).
Based on his PhD research he developed an Organisational Resilience Maturity System, which can be used to assess and benchmark an organisation’s level of resilience capability. His experience spans the delivery of Change programs across several organisations, project and program management, risk and continuity management, business change and organisational learning activities.
Along with his PhD in Organisational Resilience, Aaron has Masters’ degrees in Organisational Change Management, Executive Leadership and Management, and International Politics, Strategic Relations and Modern Conflict, as well as a PGCE in adult learning, He has had several papers published in academic and practitioner journals.
His greatest highlight to date is the introduction of virtual reality into the military training system and unleashing the capability. A close second is the work within the Rail industry in turning his research into reality in developing a resilience culture.
- Associate Lecturer