Workers in various industries can be exposed to dangerous airborne contaminants. The dangers range from nuisance level dusts to serious, life-threatening exposure, each requiring respiratory products at various levels of protection.

The importance of safety can’t be underestimated. Providing personal protective equipment (PPE) is essential in industries that require employees to work in harsh and hazardous conditions, from manufacturing to transportation, construction and more.

Imagine that on the first day at your new job, the foreman tosses you a harness and a 6-foot lanyard and says, “Be careful out there!” That may seem like an extreme example of a woefully inadequate fall protection training program, but I will bet dollars to donuts it happens more often than we think.

When employees are performing construction work six feet or more above a lower level, you need to provide them with some type of fall protection. There is an exception for working on scaffolding — the threshold height for fall protection is ten feet. OSHA regulates falls at 1926 Subpart M.

This month, ISHN interviews Ted Smith, founder and CEO of Corvex, a software and mobile safety device manufacturer based in Eden Prairie, MN.