Entrepreneur, philanthropist inspires Opening Session attendees to help others
For Mick Ebeling, it started with one solution, which led to another … then another … and another.
At an art gallery show to benefit Tony Quan, a Los Angeles street artist with Lou Gehrig’s disease, Ebeling, a veteran of the film production industry, began to look for answers to seemingly impossible challenges to help benefit humanity.
Speaking to several thousand safety professionals Sept. 9 during the Opening Session of the National Safety Council 2019 Congress & Expo, Ebeling shared how his company, Not Impossible Labs, was born.
Speaking to several thousand safety professionals Sept. 9 during the Opening Session of the National Safety Council 2019 Congress & Expo, Ebeling shared how his company, Not Impossible Labs, was born.
“When you see something that’s absurd that has to change and it speaks to you, first you commit and then you figure it out,” Ebeling said. “That’s what you all do all the time anyway. You see a problem that has to be solved. Do you know how to do it when you say you’re going to do it? No.”
Determined to help Quan, Ebeling invited a diverse group of “makers, hackers and mad scientists” to move into his home, where they came up with the Eyewriter. The device tracked Quan’s eye movement, allowing him to draw for the first time in seven years.
When Ebeling learned of a missionary doctor in Sudan who was treating thousands of amputees during an ongoing war in the region, Ebeling worked with his team to produce low-cost, 3D-printed prosthetic hands and arms to help change the lives of those affected.
Among them was 12-year-old Daniel, who badly feared being a burden on his family. A prosthetic arm allowed Daniel to feed himself for the first time in two years and gave him a new lease on life.
“How will you use your intelligence and skills?” Ebeling asked the audience. “How can you use that to help people? Who is your ‘one’? Who is your Daniel?”
NSC President and CEO Lorraine M. Martin began the Opening Session talking about how safety leaders who see with their own eyes the challenges their workers face can have a bigger impact.
“To me, leadership means showing up and never leaving your people behind,” Martin said. “I discovered that improving safety required showing up as a leader to see what we ask of our people and to see what’s in their way.”
For Martin, who worked in the aerospace and defense industry at Lockheed Martin for more than three decades, that included crawling on her back inside the wing/fuel tank of a C-5 cargo plane to discover issues with fasteners inside the tanks.
“Being there and seeing it for myself made me realize we could engineer better tools for our mechanics, and we did just that,” Martin said. “Serving as a leader means you show up for those around you. That is what safety leaders do.”
Leadership Keynote speaker: The future is approaching rapidly – prepare now
Safety professionals need to prepare now for a future that is coming faster than many anticipate, futurist and trends and innovation expert Jim Carroll said Sept. 11 during the Leadership Keynote at the National Safety Council 2019 Congress & Expo.
One of his objectives, Carroll said, was to “scare and terrify” the audience about new trends reshaping the world and their ensuing safety risks. He also, however, encouraged safety pros to view the future as an opportunity, not a source of fear.
Carroll said the future can take us in directions that we can’t even imagine today, such as welders or truck drivers performing their tasks from thousands of miles away through virtual reality. He also predicted that 65% of today’s preschool-age children will work in jobs or careers that don’t exist yet.
“How are you going to mitigate safety risks for jobs and careers which are not yet in existence?” Carroll asked.
He urged safety pros to ensure they are part of any discussion about the future and encouraged them to adopt an “innovation mindset”: think big, start with small changes and prepare to move fast.
“You need to be involved in the future,” he said. “You need to understand these trends. You need to assess the reality of the risks that can come.
Distinguished Service to Safety Award recipients agree: ‘There’s not a much bigger honor’
(From left) Distinguished Service to Safety Award recipients Don Taylor, Michael Ballard, Darryl Hill, Travis Parsons, Doug Pontsler and Jim Sievert receive a standing ovation Sept. 9 during the Opening Session of the NSC 2019 Congress & Expo.
Growing up in the 1950s, Jim Sievert often accompanied his late father, Myron, on weekend trips to inspect Philadelphia street excavations.
The experiences resonated immediately: Sievert knew in second grade that he wanted to be a safety professional. When a teacher asked him to name his ideal adult occupation, Sievert responded with “safety engineer.”
“The teacher said to me, ‘Will you work on a train?’ Because nobody really knew what it was in those days,” said Sievert, now the lead instructor at the National Safety Council of Northern New England in Concord, NH.
Awareness of the occupational safety and health landscape has advanced markedly since Sievert’s youth, a point on which he reflected Sept. 9 before accepting a Distinguished Service to Safety Award during the Opening Session of the NSC 2019 Congress & Expo.
NSC awarded the DSSA – its highest honor – to six safety professionals, highlighting each recipient’s exemplary lifetime efforts in improving safety and health. Sievert wasn’t the only winner who channeled his father.
“My dad put it best when I told him about the award,” said Travis Parsons, associate director of OSH at the Washington, D.C.-based Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America. “To receive an award where you’re nominated and praised by your peers, both the people you work beside every day and your leadership that you work for, which is what this encompasses, there’s not a much bigger honor when it comes down to it.”
NSC Divisions committees reviewed numerous nominations from the public and NSC members to determine the honorees.
“I am very grateful for the person who nominated me, and I am grateful for the recognition that comes with the hard work, with being surrounded by other people who take great pride in their work,” said Michael Ballard, deputy chief of Air Force occupational safety at the U.S. Air Force Safety Center on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM.
“Together you’re able to get things done for the benefits of the workers and workforce and workplace,” Ballard said. “While I get to collect the award as an individual, it’s really about the collective career successes of myself and many others.”
Darryl Hill, senior vice president of safety at FirstGroup America in Cincinnati, considered being nominated for the award “an honor in itself.” Hill recalled “a very uplifting call” from NSC President and CEO Lorraine M. Martin, who informed the recipients of the honor several weeks before Congress & Expo.
“To be recognized by NSC … means a lot,” Hill said. “It’s certainly an honor for the recognition. Plus, I really believe in the focus and the aim of NSC.”
Don Taylor, global health and safety and medical manager at Nexteer Automotive in Saginaw, MI, shared that sentiment. “When you look at your peers around the country, and you know a lot of different people and have worked with a lot of people and have trained a lot of people around the world, to be mentioned in that limelight and be part of that, it’s a selective group that I’m very proud to be part of,” Taylor said.
Doug Pontsler, chair and managing director of the Center of Visual Expertise in Toledo, OH, said he was especially humbled to earn the same award that two close colleagues have received in recent years.
The council first presented the Distinguished Service to Safety Award in 1942 to recognize companies and individuals who worked to reduce occupational injuries.
NSC honors Megan Tranter with Marion Martin Award
Megan Tranter is the recipient of the 2019 Marion Martin Award, presented annually by the National Safety Council Women’s Caucus. Tranter was presented the award Sept. 9 during the Opening Session of the NSC 2019 Congress & Expo.
Tranter, the global director of environment, health and safety at Amazon, said she had few colleagues after whom she could model herself when she graduated college.
“I began my career in safety when there were few female role models and safety professionals,” she said. “When I completed my degree in 1993, I was one of eight graduates of Australia’s first health and safety undergraduate program. I don’t think many of us even realized what our careers could grow to be.”
Tranter’s career brought her to the United States and jobs with major corporations, where she has impacted the safety and health of millions of workers and their families.
Tranter is the first global EHS director at Amazon. Previously, she was PepsiCo Inc.’s first female EHS senior director, and later vice president.
NSC board of directors welcomes new chair, vice chair
Andrew Johnson is the new chair of the National Safety Council board of directors. Outgoing Chair Mark Vergnano passed the gavel to Johnson Sept. 9 during the Opening Session of the NSC 2019 Congress & Expo.
Johnson previously served as vice chair of the NSC board, as well as chair of the NSC Delegates.
Johnson is chief risk control officer at Captive Resources LLC, advisor to member-owned group captive insurance organizations, and has both CSP and ARM designations.
Taking over as vice chair of the board is Elaine Beitler, who also will serve as chair of the delegates. Beitler is CEO of Browz LLC, a global software developer and provider. Before joining Browz, she spent 13 years at Bowne & Co. Inc., a shareholder and marketing communication services company, where she was corporate officer, president of marketing and business communications, and chief information officer.
Fall Protection again tops OSHA’s ‘Top 10’ list of most frequently cited violations
For the ninth consecutive year, Fall Protection – General Requirements is OSHA’s most frequently cited standard, the agency and Safety+Health announced Sept. 10 at the National Safety Council 2019 Congress & Expo.
The rest of the preliminary list of OSHA’s Top 10 violations for fiscal year 2019 also remained largely unchanged from FY 2018, with only one minor adjustment. Lockout/Tagout, which ranked fifth in FY 2018, climbed one spot to No. 4, trading places with Respiratory Protection.
Patrick Kapust, deputy director of OSHA’s Directorate of Enforcement Programs, presented the list, based on OSHA Information System data from Oct. 1 to Aug. 15. Kevin Druley, associate editor for S+H, moderated the session, which took place in the NSC Learning Lab on the Expo Floor.
“Look at your own workplace and see where you can find solutions,” Kapust said during the presentation. “These are common violations. They’ve been around for a while. The answers are out there.”
The full list:
- Fall Protection – General Requirements (1926.501): 6,010 violations
- Hazard Communication (1910.1200): 3,671
- Scaffolding (1926.451): 2,813
- Lockout/Tagout (1910.147): 2,606
- Respiratory Protection (1910.134): 2,450
- Ladders (1926.1053): 2,345
- Powered Industrial Trucks (1910.178): 2,093
- Fall Protection – Training Requirements (1926.503): 1,773
- Machine Guarding (1910.212): 1,743
- Personal Protective and Lifesaving Equipment – Eye and Face Protection (1926.102): 1,411
Finalized data, along with additional details and exclusive content, will be published in the December issue of S+H.
NSC presents ‘Best in Show’ New Product Showcase Awards
After 14,261 votes were cast for 111 products from 72 companies, the results of the 2019 “Best in Show” New Product Showcase Awards were revealed Sept. 10 before the Occupational Keynote at the National Safety Council 2019 Congress & Expo.
The results:
Win
Company: EgaMaster
Product: Total Safety Slogging Wrench
Description: 70% of all tool injuries involve hands. O-Ring insert eliminates slippage from fastener, reducing striking injuries to hands and fingers. Anti-Drop shackle eliminates head injuries when working at height. Available in steel, non-sparking aluminum bronze and copper beryllium – standard and metric.
Place
Company: Task Gloves Corp.
Product: Versus Plus VII VSP72670HO
Description: Task Glove’s unique proprietary engineered 18-gauge knit shell delivers an extremely lightweight, A7 cut resistance protection for maximum ?comfort with touchscreen compatibility. Palm-coated with our super-foam, soft nitrile provides excellent abrasion protection and grip while our nitrile-reinforced thumb saddle adds durability and extended wear of the glove.
Show
Company: Maincal SA
Product: Energy 420G
Description: The Energy 420G is a model of Voran’s innovative Sport Safe line. It is a safety sports shoe with an ultralight, slim sole that has a core of Infinergy by Basf. This technology is the world’s first expanded thermoplastic polyurethane (E-TPU) that has revolutionized running shoes. It makes the product comfortable to use while returning energy to the user with a reduction of fatigue.
