Author: Tom Mayfield

After an early life in the Royal Navy as a nuclear submarine operator, Tom Mayfield was fortunate to be asked to attend the civil service ergonomics short course run by Dr Harry Maule at London University. This proved to be a major turning point and was the catalyst for a an interesting and varied career in human factors. Starting in submarine panel design work with Y-ARD in Glasgow, Tom moved to ship's bridge work at the IMF Ergonomics Laboratory in Feltham, carrying on under Tony Clarke the early work carried out by Donald Anderson. In a desperate attempt to prove he knew something about ergonomics Tom applied, and was accepted, to the HUSAT Research Institute, and carried out his Masters at Loughborough University. It was here that he was part of the team responsible for the Design Guidelines for Computer-based Systems, a joint DoI and MOD publication.

Tom's final career move in the UK in 1986 was just up the road from HUSAT to Rolls-Royce in Derby where, as the Corporate Consultant responsible for Human Factors he returned once again to the design of nuclear submarine control panels and engineering spaces. During his time at RR Tom was a special lecturer at Nottingham University teaching Environmental Ergonomics.

In 1999 Tom left Rolls-Royce for the US, where he is married to Virginia native Jorg, a VDOT Residency Administrator.  He is currently Principal Ergonomics and Human Factors Consultant with Evan Incorporated, in Virginia, a consultancy doing human factors and business process improvement work.  Tom has just completed 5 years as Adjunct Associate Professor at George mason University, lecturing on Task Analysis.