Joseph Drago

Joseph “Joe” Drago, a proud second-generation Illini, is the Director of Culture and Change Management with the Marathon Consulting Group.  Upon earning his B.S. in chemical engineering (1972) and M.S. in nuclear engineering (1974) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, he served as a development engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the reactor engineer at the Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant, the safety compliance officer at Argonne National Laboratory, and a nuclear engineer with the U.S. Department of Energy.  He has led facility safety review teams and incident investigations. 

Drago has sponsored a few of the Chemical Safety Board poster sessions that are part of the coursework for freshmen in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department.  He has given several lectures in the ChBE process safety course and was the convocation speaker in December 2021.  He and his wife, Nancy, founded the Philip and Anne Drago scholarship. 

Drago is a registered professional engineer.