Nothing short of a grassroots movement
the profession: the state of health and
safety regulations in the U.S., and global
practices for protecting workers. Panels of
experts would discuss the background
and opportunities for advancement in
each area, and then, after the conference,
select the winning idea.
Hoffman’s familiarity with the panel of
experts on global practices was one reason the competition appealed to him. The
panel included the incoming and outgoing presidents of the British Occupational
Hygiene Society: Roger Alesbury of
British Petroleum, and Stephen Bailey of
Glaxosmithkline. Hoffman was particularly interested in Alesbury’s pioneering
work on BP’s international training modules for occupational hygiene. The other
panelists were Sharann Johnson, president of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, and Gayla McCluskey, a
past president of AIHA.
South African National Institute for Occupational Health in Johannesburg. All
four were strangers to each other.
“It was quite random,” Hoffman says
of his team’s formation. “Basically, [the
team was] whoever sat down at that table
by chance.”
It seemed that chance had dealt Hoff-
man’s group a good hand. All four had
significant international experience and
brought the perspectives of three nations
to their discussion. Mulhausen and Fal-
lon-Carine worked for large multinational
companies, while Ferrie was based in
South Africa and Hoffman in Ontario.
When he was younger, Hoffman had
traveled around the world. “I’ve got a lot
of experience in developing countries
from a backpacker’s sense,” he says. After
obtaining his masters in occupational and
environmental health science, Hoffman
took a job in the steel industry. A few
years ago, the Hamilton-based company
he worked for was acquired by Luxem-
bourg-based ArcerlorMittal, the world’s
largest mining and steel company. Hoffman
had traveled recently to ArcerlorMittal
sites in the Ukraine.
Chance Encounter
On Monday, June 1, Peter Diamandis, the
chairman and CEO of the X Prize, addressed attendees at the opening general
session of AIHce 2009. Diamandis explained how competition was responsible
for two of the 20th century’s greatest
achievements: Charles Lindbergh’s 1927
solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and
the 1969 Apollo moon landing. Lindbergh was competing for the $25,000 Or-teig Prize, while the success of the Apollo
project owed much to Cold War-era fears
of Soviet technological supremacy.
The Breakthrough Thinking Session on
global practices—a topic that stemmed
from an Academy of Industrial Hygiene
project on promoting the profession worldwide—was held the day after Diamandis’
address. Hoffman found himself seated at
a roundtable with three people he’d never
met before: John Mulhausen, director of
corporate safety and industrial hygiene at
3M in St. Paul, Minn.; Jeanne Fallon-Carine, EHS manager at General Electric
in Minden, Nev.; and Rob Ferrie of the
Ending OSHA As We Know It?
Runner-up Envisions New Role for Agency
“Responsible and progressive companies don’t consider OSHA a factor anymore;
they are moving to adopt occupational exposure limits that reflect the latest
research data.”
Sound familiar? If so, you may recall David Downs’ article “Rethinking Federal
Regulation of Occupational Health and Safety,” which appeared in the April 2009
Synergist. Downs proposed that OSHA end its nearly forty-year fixation on expo-
sure limits and, instead, focus on risk assessments. As in the European Union,
companies would have to demonstrate that they implemented controls to reduce
risks or face fines and other enforcement actions from OSHA. This change in focus
would free the agency from the costly court battles that have accompanied every
attempt to update PELs since the late 1980s.
