Eula Bingham
Possibly the most aggres- sive OSHA chief, Bingham served in the 1970s during the Carter administration. She said OSHA would launch an “all-out effort to combat occu- pational illness and disease.” An occupational health scien- tist who worked for NIOSH in the early ’70s, she issued stan-
dards on lead, cotton dust and benzene, proposed a generic cancer policy, and battled Republican efforts to limit the agency’s enforcement power.
Frank E. Bird
A true pioneer in occupational safety and health, Bird was director of safety and security at Lukens Steel Co., Coatesville, PA, in the 1950s. He was one of the first to integrate operational concerns of productivity, quality and costs into traditional safety techniques. After a seven-year study of 90,000 inci- dents, Bird discovered the ratio of 1:100:500– for every one disabling injury there were 100 minor injuries and 500 property damage accidents. Bird also developed the “cost iceberg” showing the obvious direct costs of accidents (above the waterline) and the large, less obvious costs below the waterline. In 1970 Bird estab- lished the International Safety Academy and hired safety, ind s- trial hygiene, loss control, risk management and training speci l- ists to teach the four functions of management – planning, organzing, leading and controlling.
Richard Boggs
A respected behind-the-scenes honest broker in Washington’s wars over OSHA in the 1980s and ‘90s, Boggs originally worked for NIOSH. As head of the Organization Resource Counselors’ (ORC) Washington office, Boggs was instrumental in developing perhaps the first closed-door forum enabling candid corporate safety and health benchmarking and case study presentations. In the process, he and his staff created a close commu- nity of executive-level safety and health directors.
Mort Corn
The first career safety and health expert to be OSHA chief, Corn was proud to be called a technologist.
This was in mid 1970s. Corn worked with mis- sionary zeal and brought a much-needed sense of professionalism to the fledgling agency. Corn has influenced and mentored thousands of industrial hygienists in government and industry as a Johns Hopkins professor.
Sidney Dekker
Dekker is professor at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, where he runs the Safety Science Innovation Lab. He is also Professor (Hon.) of psychology at The University of Queensland, and Professor (Hon.) of human factors and patient safety at Royal Children’s Hospital in Brisbane. He has won worldwide acclaim for his groundbreaking work in human factors and safety, and is best-selling author of “The Field Guide to Understanding ‘Human Error ” (2014), “Second Victim” (2013), “Just Culture” (2012), “Drift into Failure” (2011), and “Patient Safe y” (2011). His latest boo is “Safety Differently” (20 5).
Elizabeth Dole
As Secretary of Labor under President George H W. Bush, Dole was instrumental in giving OSHA chief Jerry Scannell political cover to propose “b g ticket” standards mandating seat belt use and in dating seat belt use and indoor air quality – neither of which was finalized. One of the most pro-safety Labor Secretaries, she helped OSHA regain its footing after the Reagan years. Dole went on to run the American Red Cross and became the first female U.S. senator from North Carolina.
Earl Dotter
Dotter has been photographing American workers on the job for more than 40 years. His lifetime commitment to documenting their stories has made Dotter the American worker’s “Poet Laureate.” Beginning in the Appalachian coalfields in the early 1970s to the present, he has put a human face on those who labor, often in dangerous and unhealthy conditions.
Rick Fulwiler
Fulwiler had a 28-year career at Procter & Gamble, retiring as its Global Director of Health & Safety. He has taught executive leadership and management at Harvard University, and was one of the founding fathers (and a longtime instructor) of the Qualified Safety Sales Professional (QSSP) course, which has indoctrinated hundreds of safety manufacturer sales reps and product managers in the fundamentals of occupational safety and health.
Scott Geller
Dr. Geller has taught psychology at Virginia Tech since 1969, becom- ing Alumni Distinguished Professor in 2005. He has written hundreds of articles and numerous books, including the groundbreaking “The Psychology of Safety - How to Improve Behaviors and Attitudes on the Job” in 1996. One of safety’s most charismatic and popular conference speakers, Dr. Geller has traveled the globe educating audiences on behavior-based safety, people- based-safety, actively caring, humanistic behaviorism, and Actively Caring For People (AC4P).
John V. Grimaldi
Grimaldi co-authored “Safety Management” with Rollin H. Simonds in 1956, a book which had its fifth edition published in 1994. Considered a true vision- ary in the safety profession, he once said “the work of managing is persuading someone else to work,” and “I have been outspoken on the need for safety profes- sionals to become champions for safety management. On many occasions, we have relegated ourselves to being a sideline advisor. We identify a problem, then walk away.” His thinking was influential through the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s and up to today.
Ron Hayes
Called by Mother Jones magazine a “hellraiser,” Hayes became an aggressive and savvy safety advocate and trainer after his 19-year-old son was killed in a grain silo accident. He battled OSHA when fines relat- ing to his son’s death were reduced from $500,000 to $42,000, and with his wife co-founded The FIGHT Project (Families In Grief Hold Together). Hayes has counseled (pro bono) more than 300 grieving families involved in workplace tragedies, often driving thousands of miles to meet with them, offer advice for dealing with OSHA, and to conduct safety training workshops. The politically savvy “good old boy” from Alabama often traveled to Washington to work on OSHA reform initiatives across the aisle – with Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy and Republican Senator Mike Enzi.
John Henshaw
A health and safety professional for more than 40 years, Henshaw was OSHA chief from2001 to 2004, overseeing OSHA’s response to the 9/11 attacks and helping to greatly expand the Voluntary Protection Program. Prior to his OSHA years, Henshaw was a widely respected and high profile industrial hygienist and corporate director of EHS for several pharmaceutical corporations. One of the most articulate spokesman for occupational safety and health, Henshaw works as a consultant specializing in crisis management, exposure assessment, leadership and regulatory support.
Dr. John Howard
The longest-serving director of NIOSH (2002-2008 and again from 2009 to present), Dr. Howard is a renaissance man in occupational safety and health. He has an MD, MPH, JD, and headed Cal/ OSHA prior to com- ing to NIOSH. A frequent conference speaker, Dr. Howard is widely viewed as a visionary, pin- pointing emerging issues such as the aging workforce, theneed to resupply the safety and health professional ranks following baby boomer retirements, the need for more investment in worker health promotion and wellness, and teaching young people about the basics of job safety and health.
Tom Krause
Dr. Krause was a co- founder of Behavioral Science Technology (BST) in 1979 (sold to DEKRA in 2012) and during the 1980s and ‘90s was the savviest promoter of behavior- based safety. Over the years his focus broad- ened and he has written five books on safety performance improvement, culture change and leadership. Dr. Krause has coached executives on safety issues and is very at home making the case safety as an organizational change agent in boardrooms and C-suites.
Dr. Philip Landrigan
One of the leading U.S. public health advocates of the past 50 years. Current chair of the Dept. of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in NYC. Dr. Landrigan played a key role in the government mandate phasing out lead components from gasoline, beginning in 1975, and the federal ban on lead paint in 1978. He also conducted groundbreaking work on pesticide and asbestos exposures. A former senior advisor to the EPA, Dr. Landrigan also served as director of the Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies for NIOSH.
Dr. Lucian Leape
The founding father of the patient safety ovement in health- care, Dr. Leape wrote the article, “Error in Medicine” in the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) in 1994. A physician and professor t Harvard School of Public Health, he has been tireless in trying to improve the medical system to reduce medical error.
Fred Manuele
Manuele’s interests in occupational safety has ranged far and wide for decades as a widely read author of books and numer- ous articles. He has deep roots in the safety through design movement, leading efforts to develop ANSI Z590.3 “Prevention Through Design, Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Hazards and Risks in Design and Redesign Processes.” His book, “On the Practice of Safety,” had its fourth edition pub- lished in 2013. He has also authored books on “Innovations in Safety Management,” “Advanced Safety Management,” and “Heinrich Revisited: Truisms or Myths.”
Anthony Mazzocchi
Mazzocchi, a long- time labor leader and VP of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, was credited by President Nixon as being the pri- mary force behind the creation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970. He was a mentor to Karen Silkwood, a union activist in Oklahoma, and has been called “the Rachel Carson of the American work- place.” Speaking about the expsure to asbestos by hundreds of workers in a factory in Tyler, Texas, Mazzocchi said, “murder was being committed in the workplace, and that no one was bothering about it.” He was the subject of a book, “The Man Who Hated Work and Lo ed Labor.”
David Michaels
Far and away the lon- gest-serving OSHA chief. Pushed mightily but with- out success for an Injury and Illness Prevention Program modeled after Cal/OSHA’s program. During his watch OSHA did issue standards on silica, confined spaces in construction and electronic recordkeeping.
Also, incentive programs came under scrutiny for potential under-reporting. And during Michaels’ tenure OSHA focused on falls, Hispanic safety and temporary worker safety as well as whistle- blower protections.
Paul O’Neill
The former CEO of Alcoa and Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, O’Neill, more than any other corpo- rate executive, used occu- pational safety and health to strengthen a corporate culture and leverage the operational reliability of a safe and healthful organiza-
tion to produce outstanding bottom line business performance. O’Neill’s passion for safety has come across in numerous speeches, and in recent years has extended into a passion for patient safety in healthcare.
Dan Petersen
One of the fathers of modern safety, Petersen was one of the first to recog- nize and address the human behavioral side of safety and the critical role cul- ture plays in safety. A prolific author, Petersen wrote on behavioral safety, culture assessment, perception surveys, managing employee stress, performance measurement and reward, accountability and safety by objectives, human error reduction and safety supervision. Never one to pull punches, Petersen once said, “It is a very bad message to say safety is about dollars. The real message is: we are doing these things because we care about you, the company cares about you. Don’t even talk to me about doing safety for money.”
