Joe Rees

Joe Rees is an associate professor at Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy. His research asks a simple question: When an industry is left to police itself, does it work? He has studied that question in nuclear power, industrial construction, chemical manufacturing, and health care.

His book Hostages of Each Other examines how the nuclear power industry responded to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Under intense pressure, the industry created its own regulator—the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations—and made it work. A Japanese translation is in preparation. His first book, Reforming the Workplace, studied a Cal/OSHA program that gave companies and unions greater responsibility for inspecting large construction sites. Accident rates fell. His later work examined self-regulation in chemical manufacturing. In health care, he traced the practice back to its Progressive-era origins. He is now writing a follow-up to Hostages of Each Other.

Before joining Virginia Tech in 1994, Rees taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Texas A&M University. He directed the Center for Public Administration and Policy from 1997 to 2004. He earned a bachelor’s degree from UCLA and a doctorate in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

At Virginia Tech, Rees teaches graduate courses in organization theory, leadership and management, and the ethical foundations of public service.

Areas of Expertise

• Government Regulation
• Industry Self-Regulation
• Organizational Ethics
• Safety in High-Hazard Industries

Books

• Hostages of Each Other: The Transformation of Nuclear Safety since Three Mile Island University of Chicago Press, 1994 ISBN 9780226706887
• Reforming the Workplace: A Study of Self- Regulation in Occupational Safety University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988 ISBN 9780812281323