TL Peters II has worked in occupational protection, commonly known as occupational safety, since 1988. He began as a welder and later worked in manufacturing, construction, consulting, OSHA course instruction, organizational system development, and expert-witness analysis.

Throughout his career, he repeatedly saw organizations respond to damage by focusing on the employee while failing to examine the work system that shaped the performance. Rules were added, information was delivered, punishment was imposed, and familiar safety activities were repeated, yet the conditions producing failure often remained.

His work led to the development of Protection by Design, the Protection Architecture System, and the Performance Development System. Together, they provide an operating model for examining existing work, identifying how damage becomes possible, redesigning the work system, developing the person for a defined function, and determining whether the evidence supports qualification for assignment within defined conditions.

He is the founder of The Protector’s Institute and the author of Protection by Design. His work is driven by the conviction that organizations must stop depending on worker behavior as the primary means of protection and begin designing and verifying the complete system required to accomplish the mission without damage.