AIRED: December 20, 2021
SPECIAL GUEST: Robert Jensen
The owner of the world’s leading disaster management company chronicles the unseen world behind the yellow tape and explores what it means to be human after a lifetime of caring for the dead.
You have seen Robert A. Jensen―you just never knew it. As the owner of the world’s largest disaster management company, he has spent most of his adult life responding to tragedy. From the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, and the Bali bombings, to the 2004 South Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haitian Earthquake, and the Grenfell Tower Fire, Jensen has been at the practical level of international incidents, assisting with the recovery of bodies, identifying victims, and repatriating and returning their personal effects to the surviving family members. He is also, crucially, involved in the emotional recovery that comes after a disaster: helping guide the families, governments, and companies involved, telling them what to expect, and managing the unmanageable. As he explains, “If journalists write the first rough draft of history, I put the punctuation on the past.”
Personal Effects is an unsparing, up-close look at the difficult work Jensen does behind the yellow tape and the lessons he learned there. The chronicle of an almost impossible and grim job, Personal Effects also tells Jensen’s own story―how he came to this line of work, how he manages the chaos that is his life, and the personal toll the repeated exposure to mass death brings, in becoming what GQ called “the best at the worst job in the world.”
A rare glimpse into a world we all see but many know nothing about, Personal Effects is an inspiring and heartwarming story of survival and the importance of moving forward, Jensen allows his readers to see over his shoulder as he responds to disaster sites, uncovers the deceased, and cares for families to show how a strong will and desire to do good can become a path through the worst the world can throw at us.
ROBERT JENSEN
Robert A. Jensen is the Chairman of Kenyon International Emergency Services. He joined Kenyon in 1998, after serving as US Military Officer. His career has been spent restoring order and leading transitional change after a crisis for blue-chip companies and governments. He leads Kenyon, a 110+-year-old multi-national corporation, retained by over 600 leading businesses and governments. Kenyon provides crisis management response and consulting services to these organizations representing the transportation, hospitality, tourism, natural resource, education, and financial sectors as well as government agencies tasked with looking after their citizens at home and abroad.
Robert leads CEOs, Boards of Directors, and government officials through the practical areas of response and recovery – the legal, humanitarian, and communications challenges. He focuses on the transition of people, leadership, and organizations from what was normal to the new normal, in the process of preserving and recovering share value, reputation, and market position.
He has directed and been involved in response and recovery efforts for numerous international large-scale crises, typically terrorist attacks, criminal and civil investigations, natural disasters, and countless transportation accidents – most involving large-scale loss of life. These have included complex events such as bombings in Oklahoma City, the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, Bali nightclubs, the 9/11 attacks, seizure of the In Amenas gas plant, the Tunis beach attacks, the Boxing Day Tsunami, the Haitian Earthquake, and multiple large-scale aircraft, rail, and maritime disasters.
