Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society. Today’s guest is RIMS 2023 Rising Star Emily L. Bloedel, the face of the RIMS Rocky Mountain Chapter. Emily shares highlights of her career so far, her participation in RIMS,  and her expectations as an involved risk professional.   Key Takeaways: [:01] About RIMScast. [:26] I will be joined by RIMS 2023 Rising Star Emily L. Bloedel. [:34] All about upcoming RIMS webinars, workshops, events, and more! [1:15] About RIMS-CRMP. [1:28] About RIMS-CRMP-FED. [2:03] About RISKWORLD 2023 with closing keynote speaker Danica Patrick! [2:40] About today’s episode with Emily L. Bloedel, the manager of contracts and legal affairs and corporate counsel at Merrick & Company, an engineering and architectural firm, based in Denver, Colorado. [2:53] Emily is the face of the RIMS Rocky Mountain Chapter where she is concluding her term as president in 2023. She contributes much to Merrick and RIMS on the local and global levels as well as the legal and risk professions, which is why she was named RIMS Rising Star for 2023. [3:10] We’re going to learn about her risk philosophy, some of her processes, and how she maintains balance in her legal and risk roles. Read her profile in the Awards edition of RIMS Risk Management Magazine this month and she will be with me at RISKWORLD Global Studio for RIMScast Live on May 1st at 3:00 p.m. She’s omnipresent, folks! [3:33] RIMS 2023 Rising Star Emily Bloedel, welcome to RIMScast! [3:55] Emily was thrilled to be selected as the RIMS 2023 Rising Star! There are so many wonderful people in the profession! It made her year! [4:14] Justin wrote an article in Risk Management magazine supplement, “Rising Star 2023: Emily L. Bloedel.” During law school, Emily interned for Merrick & Company and enjoyed it. On graduation, Emily passed the bar and spent a few years practicing law. [5:09] Practicing law was not all Emily had hoped, so she looked for other opportunities. Her former boss at Merrick told her about an opportunity to start an in-house department. She jumped at the chance and has been at Merrick for eight years. [6:14] Merrick reaches out to local politicians and organizations so they can help to shape legislative changes in the industry that are coming. [7:35] Colorado has different terrains and soils. What works in one location may be unsuitable for another location. Merrick looks carefully at that and builds it into contracts to make sure that what the clients are doing in a location is done safely. [8:21] Merrick has a water group that looks at how clients are treating water safely and ensuring that it flows. They help clients restore balance to areas that have been affected by industry. [9:40] About Merrick’s Technology Disruptors Committee. They look at technology that may disrupt Merrick’s business or their clients. They have eight areas of focus. They have a working group looking solely at Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality. Merrick funds an initiative to use VR/AR on projects to provide value to clients. [11:07] Emily tells how the committee developed and focused on specific areas of technology. She is no longer on the committee as her risk focus is no longer needed. [12:16] Cyberrisk is top-of-mind now for Emily. Merrick has formed a cyber-incident response plan and cyber-incident response team. Emily continues deepening her involvement in this area. They are subject to new and different attacks every day. [13:22] Emily looks forward to going into depth on the Merrick risk matrix when she appears in the RISKWORLD Global Studio for RIMScast Live on May 1st at 3:00 p.m. Her boss, Carter Boardman, set up a matrix to help project managers, teams, and support staff evaluate the risk of a project. Emily explains the categories of risk. [14:51] The risks Emily finds acceptable generally go through. As an employee-owned firm, everyone approaches carefully the risks the company take