Silica Exposure Training for the Cut Stone Industry

In 2019, members of the Georgia Tech Safety, Health, Environmental Services (SHES) Industrial Hygiene team noticed silica exposure levels being reported were extremely high during regular exposure assessment visits among quartz countertop (engineered stone) fabrication workers in manufacturing plants, even when preventative controls were being used. This corresponded with the 2019 CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) that reported eighteen cases of silicosis, including two fatalities, among stone fabrication workers in four states. Silicosis is an incurable occupational lung disease caused by inhaling particles of respirable crystalline silica. These particles trigger inflammation and fibrosis in the lungs, leading to progressive, irreversible, and potentially disabling disease. Silica exposure is also associated with increased risk for lung infection, lung cancer, emphysema, and other illnesses. Because quartz, a type of mineral that contains high levels of respirable crystalline silica, workers who cut, polish, or grind stone materials can be exposed to extremely high levels of silica dust.

“Since reporting cases of silicosis is not required in the State of Georgia, there is no surveillance method or way to track the number of cases or deaths, so it was important that we try and find a way prevent the exposure,” stated Jenny Houlroyd, manager of the Occupational Health Services team at Georgia Tech, who led the initiative to apply for OSHA funding to support this training effort through a Susan Harwood Grant.

The grant was approved in 2021 and the team launched into action to gather more information. Houlroyd, joined by Principal Investigator Brandon Philpot:

• Conducted focus groups with different stakeholders, including researchers from the MMWR report, the California Department of Health, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Surveyed several OSHA 21(d) Consultation Program companies they had previously worked with
• Contacted multiple countertop manufacturers in Georgia

After analyzing the data, Houlroyd worked with her team to develop the modules and videos for this free training, which is now available through the group’s consultation services and housed on their YouTube Channel.

To date, the program has:

• Trained 41 people, through in-person classes/online allowing employers to administer the class to their employees
• Created English and Spanish versions of the materials
• Sent flash drives to interested companies of the materials which includes an instructor guide, PowerPoint slides, and documentation that they can customize for their company
• Helped over eight companies (and counting) to implement safety measures such as safety checklists, proper PPE, and much more

Through this process, Houlroyd and Philpot heard first-hand about the dangers of working with engineered stone. “Consumers should be aware of the impact their choices make on the person manufacturing the product,” said Houlroyd, “fabricators are doing the most hazardous part of the cutting process, and because symptoms are hard to diagnose, it’s difficult for doctors to connect the dots.”

Watch their emotional discussion with Ever, a countertop fabricator, who has silicosis in this video Stop Silicosis For Ever.

Download the flyer for more information and view the videos on the SHES group’s YouTube Channel.

Dave Mehlrose shares how he turned a negative situation into a positive impact

When Dave Mehlrose started his career as an electrician, he never imagined he would end up in a safety role, much less the leader. After being unjustly let go, at a previous company, (but then re-hired) and treated unfairly, by that same company, for a safety violation he was not properly trained on to begin with, he swore he would never treat anyone like that. “People just want to come to work, do a good job, and go home safely to their families. They may not know what all the rules are all the time, and that’s what we are here for. We aren’t safety cops; we are a resource for our people out in the field.”

Since learning about the implications that poor safety training can have on not only a company, but an individual, Dave has made it his mission to educate those around him. Today, Dave is the regional safety manager at Allison-Smith Company and says it’s “all about the education, and that’s why I choose to continue my professional development through Georgia Tech — they provide the best safety training classes.”

Resources for the Safety and Health Workforce

When a worker is severely injured or killed on the job, it doesn’t just affect them – it affects their entire family. Thinking about the future can be overwhelming, and if put off, when the time comes, the cost of higher education can be well out of reach.

The Georgia Tech OSHA Training Institute Education Center provides professional education for those with safety and health responsibilities in their workplaces, and has used a donation of one of our Safety & Health Professional Certificate Programs to benefit Kids’ Chance of Georgia for years. Kids’ Chance provides educational scholarships to the children of Georgia workers who have been seriously, catastrophically, or fatally injured in work-related accidents.

“Often, when people think of workplace safety or OSHA, they think of rules or laws. We must remember that those rules were written with immeasurable loss. They were written and established because every year, and still today, thousands of Americans died just going to work. Every one of those workers who didn’t come home – they left family, loved ones, a community behind. They left a story unfinished. The Kids’ Chance scholarships provide an opportunity for these children that might otherwise be out of reach for their family. It allows them to write another chapter,” said Hilarie Warren, Director GT OSHA Training Institute Education Center.

“The story of our certificate recipients – how they develop professionally in this field of workplace safety and health – being intertwined with the story of a Kids’ Chance scholarship recipient – it’s a chapter of hope and a chance to write their own future.”

Allison-Smith Company and Kids’ Chance Recipient

Mehlrose attended this year’s Georgia Safety, Health and Environmental Conference and placed the winning bid at the annual silent auction to win a full safety certificate in either construction or general industry from the Georgia Tech OSHA Training Institute Education Center through Georgia Tech Professional Education, a value of over $4000

This year, Mehlrose chose to pay it forward. Since he already had earned Georgia Tech’s Construction Safety Certificate, he gifted the opportunity to earn the certificate he won at the auction to his team member, Joseph McManigal, a safety professional at Allison-Smith Company.  Joseph will be able to earn his Safety and Health Certificate from Georgia Tech and continue his professional development through the support of the safety program at Allison-Smith Company and the Kids’ Chance program.

The Future of Safety

Mehlrose has taken numerous safety courses through the Georgia Tech OSHA Training Institute Education Center, starting with OSHA 500.  He is one course away from obtaining the Process Safety Management certificate and then will begin working on the Premier Occupational Safety and Health Certificate. He understands the importance of continuing education and says, “It is an absolute necessity for safety professionals. Without the resource in education, you just can’t do this job. Standards are changing and getting updated all the time. “

He sends all his employees to do their training at Georgia Tech. And when hiring, one of the selling points of working on the safety team at Allison-Smith, is that everyone will obtain training at Georgia Tech.

This is a guest post from our partner Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE).

How Ty Hatcherson found his unique calling in Workplace Safety & Health.

If there were ever an example of someone living fully in the present while keeping a trained eye on the future, that person would be Ty Hatcherson. As he nears completion of the Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) Process Safety Management Program, Hatcherson is excited to bring new knowledge to a brand new job — and already thinking about where it will lead.

Family Roots

The Texas-based process operator knew from an early age that industry operations were his calling. “My father and grandfather were industrial engineers,” he says, and, as a boy, he was intrigued by the blueprints he saw them using. The future was calling.

Hatcherson went on to earn a B.S. in Industrial Technology from Texas Southern University. He launched his career as a hands-on production lead at Halliburton, a broad-ranging role that included equipment operation, team management, safety issues — and blueprint review. From there, he moved on to The Dow Chemical Company and then to Kimberly-Clark where he was a member of the team to receive the company’s 2020 Impact Award for winning innovation in a pilot project exploring the use of polymers in Kimberly-Clark’s traditionally paper products.

Discovering His Calling

When you ask Hatcherson about any of his positions, his enthusiasm is evident. This is a person who clearly enjoys his work and brings his all to each role. What drives him is the same inquiry, in whatever setting he finds himself in: “How can I help make that better? What aren’t we doing, and what do we need to be doing?”

For Hatcherson, those questions seemed to repeatedly arise in safety-related scenarios, and indeed, workplace safety has factored into each position he’s held. After a while, he realized it was something he wanted to pursue further.

“When you get out of college, you start work, and then you start to see,” he explains. “You think, ‘This is what I’m doing, but I want to do that.'” In this case, the “that” was Environmental Health and Safety. To make the transition, Hatcherson knew adding further expertise through education was the way to go. “Education can really get that going and accelerate it.”

He decided to focus on process safety management, a regulation established by OSHA that looks at all processes that involve handling, using, storing, moving, or manufacturing highly hazardous chemicals. It not only coincided with his interests but, in addition, “seemed like a hot career path.” The present and the future combined.

Pursing Professional Education

He enrolled in GTPE’s Process Safety Management Certificate Program, which is designed to increase understanding of OSHA principles and how to apply them, including hazard and protection analyses and documentation of process safety management compliance audits.

From Day One, Hatcherson was all in, frequently sharing online what he learned in class. “I am definitely excited to have completed this OSHA 511 course,” he wrote. “It informed me of how much information is missing from the day-to-day work environment.” Upon completing a Process Hazard Analysis course, he posted, “What I Learned in Class: the critical requirement for an effective PHA, the consequences of inaccurate or incomplete PHAs, how to evaluate consequences and the magnitude of harm, failure modes, human factors, and facility siting…”

His top takeaway: “Documentation!” It’s something, he says, that he’s frequently seen lacking. Working on a project, “we’d know we’d done something before. We’d done it many times. But it was never written down anywhere.”

“It’s definitely important to me to continue my education,” he says, “because in the field of operations, the process is always changing. By the process changing so much, there are equipment changes that have to be met. This certificate will help me with helping make those changes take effect.”

Tieing it All Together

Although working full-time, he fit in classes by using saved-up vacation time. The pandemic had moved classes online, and the father of two found himself in school alongside his then 11-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. “They really liked that,” he recalls. “My daughter would say, ‘Let’s do homework together!’”

That experience was life-altering. Between commuting and working long hours on-site, “I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t there,” he reflects. It was an unexpected benefit to his decision to move into safety. “I don’t have to be present at all times,” he explains, as some work can be done from home. “It’s a better work-life balance.”

His next step is a new Process Operator job with LyondellBasell in Houston. The role includes more safety responsibilities, and Hatcherson hopes to move into a Process Safety Management position when one becomes available.

Will he pursue other professional certificates? “Oh, yes,” he says, without hesitation. “Maybe in IT, or supply chain, or HR….” As always, Hatcherson has his eye on the future, which he sees as full of possibility.

Georgia Tech Professional Education is a leader in innovative educational delivery, designed for working professionals in tech, business, and leadership. Our connection to the marketplace — coupled with our world-class faculty, researchers, and subject matter experts — provides an unparalleled perspective on education innovation, industry trends, future work, and lifelong learning. To uncover additional resources to help with questions and challenges around career advancement visit our Working & Learning page.

This is a guest post from our partner Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE).

How Cara Eck utilized safety and health training to transition from research safety into industrial hygiene

Cara Eck is a picture of lifelong learning. Having discovered her passion for safety and health, her career and learning journeys are evidence of the value that professional education provides for those who want to grow in — and beyond — their expertise.

Beginnings in Safety and Health

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in forestry, Eck decided to pursue a different career direction and began working in research safety at the University of Georgia (UGA). With over 2,000 research labs that use chemicals as well as biological and radioactive materials, UGA relies on its Office of Research Safety to ensure the safety of its research employees, even though it is not mandated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). As the Assistant Safety and Compliance Officer, she supervised the labs’ safety standards and protocols — specifically related to chemical storage and safety equipment — to ensure that they were adhering to federal, state, and university guidelines.

Eck was drawn to the occupational safety and health (OSH) industry because of its direct, positive impact on the people it serves. “There are very few jobs out there right now that allow you to do something that makes such a huge impact on people,” she said. “Not just one or two people, but a lot of people.” Every day, Eck’s safety inspections and recommendations helped save lives by creating safer work environments for the many employees who worked there.

Pursuing a Master’s in Occupational Safety and Health

When Eck’s boss, an alumnus of Georgia Tech, received an email about Georgia Tech’s Professional Master’s in Occupational Safety and Health (PMOSH) program, he encouraged her to enroll.

Throughout the two-year learning experience, Eck continued to work full-time, and she found that everything she learned through PMOSH directly applied to her work in research safety, and she enjoyed adding new knowledge to her repertoire by learning the foundations of OSHA, which provided new perspectives and practices that she could apply in her workplace. “I found it very valuable to be able to take things I was not familiar with and apply to my department,” she said.

Although she was working full-time, Eck was not overwhelmed by balancing work, learning, and life. The courses were rigorous and demanding, but their slow pacing made them manageable. She took only one online class at a time, each of which focused on one topic over seven weeks, and they provided several opportunities and resources for her to seek out assistance and information when needed.

Beyond the content, Eck also greatly benefitted from the community of the PMOSH program. From orientation to her final capstone project, she learned from and grew with her fellow cohort members. “My cohort members were amazing,” she recalled. “They were professionals who knew their craft forwards and backward, so when it came to working with them, I gained so much knowledge from them that was over and above the program itself.” She became good friends with her classmates, and she continues to stay in contact with them. “I still have a relationship with these people. We keep in touch because we actually lean on one another for information and advice.”

The Transition to Industrial Hygiene

Through the PMOSH program, Eck learned about Georgia Tech’s Industrial Hygiene and Occupational Safety Program. One of her favorite instructors, Jenny Houlroyd, taught an introduction to industrial hygiene course, and she both loved the content and excelled in learning. When she learned that a job opportunity opened in the Industrial Hygiene program at Georgia Tech, she was interested in gaining new skills from a different perspective within the safety industry. “I could not pass up the opportunity to see if Tech could be another place for me to grow in my skills.” She applied for the position and got the job. After graduating from the PMOSH program in August 2021, she began working as an industrial hygienist for Georgia Tech in November.

In her new role, Eck has been able to apply everything she learned in PMOSH in her day-to-day responsibilities as she provides consultations on safety and health standards at construction sites around Atlanta. By reviewing various aspects of the sites that may affect workers’ safety and health, like air quality and noise levels, she provides recommendations to minimize the risk of injury or accidents, which include measures such as personal protective wear equipment, administrative controls, and engineering controls.

Though she has pivoted to a new field within the industry, Eck still enjoys the knowledge that she has helped safeguard her clients’ workplaces and improved their work experiences. The safety recommendations that she provides every day “could mean that somebody who might have had some serious accident at work gets to go home safe that night instead,” she explained, “and their family doesn’t have to worry about losing them because we have made their workplace safer. That, to me, is the most rewarding thing. I know I’m making a difference.”

By extension, her work in safety assurance provides a trickle-down effect on workplace satisfaction. “Another thing that happens when you make a place safer is that the employees become happier,” she said, “and they get a feeling that their place of employment cares about them. I like seeing that.”

A Safety Career Built on Lifelong Learning

Looking toward the future, Eck is certain about her place in the safety industry. After completing the PMOSH program, she plans to continue bolstering her knowledge about industry practices with additional safety and health courses, knowing that every piece of information is useful in the field. “Every program that I take is just a little bit more knowledge that I can take and apply to my job.” She has already almost completed the Safety and Health Management Certificate, and after doing so, she plans to begin working on the Industrial Safety and Health Certificate.

Having seen the benefits of classroom learning in the workplace, she wants to help pass along the knowledge that she has gained, perhaps even by teaching at Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE). “I want to share this wealth of information,” she said. “A lot of these classes at GTPE are given to other safety professionals that work for other smaller companies or OSHA, and they can take this information and share it in the same way that I am.”

This is a guest post from our partner Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE).

Carlos Alvarado shares his path in workplace safety and how he inspires the next generation