OCAIHA Newsletter Highlights

Newsletter Announcement

As most of you know, you did not receive last months newsletter in electronic or printed form. This was because, technical difficulties were encountered in conversion from the old format to the new electronic format. Unfortunately, no printed version was mailed as a back up. To resolve this matter, at the January 13, 2004 board meeting it was agreed that our new secretary John Sullivan will generate an e-mail/website newsletter version. If this cannot be completed by our next newsletter due date, then a printed copy will be sent. Your patience in this matter is appreciated, if you have any questions, please contact us.

December 4, 2003 OCAIHA dinner meeting

The December 4, 2003 OCAIHA dinner meeting was held at the Turnip Rose. We started with registration, rounds of drinks, conversations and networking around the bar. Charles Sandberg, President opened the dinner meeting, we introduced the new officers and chatted about local and national AIHA issues. Hank Pineda introduced Mr. Howard Spielman and Mark Katchen our Dinner Speakers for Past, Present and Future Industrial Hygiene (IH) Issues. Mr. Spielman is the Principal of Health Science Associates (HSA) he is a CIH, CSP, PE, and REHS, his Industrial Hygiene and safety experience spans almost 50 years. Mark Katchen, CIH, REHS is a Managing Principal of the Phylmar Group Inc a diversified IH, toxicology, occupational health, risk communication and e-commerce company. Mark has a M.S. in Environmental and Occupational Health from California State University Northridge, an MBA from Loyola Marymount University and is on the faculty of UCI. Mark has 24 years of experience in occupational and environmental exposure assessments in many industries.

Howard started the Powerpoint presentation going back to our IH and safety history way back to Alice Hamilton and her contributions to our field. Howard reviewed the time period between 1914 to 1933 and noted extreme hazards industrial hazards existed in the work place. Most of the industrial hygiene and safety work was being performed at universities such as Harvard. In the period from 1933 to 1939 government and private organizations were formed and started to advance the profession, these included, the Social Security Administration which was formed and started to provided funds for safety and health studies. ACGIH was formed in 1937 and AIHA in 1939. World War II took priority over worker safety. From 1945 to 1970, we had post war prosperity and a surge in industrial growth In 1951 the first federal health and safety legislation was established, in 1970s under the Walsh Healey Act TLVs were enforced. OSHA was established and evolved in the 1980s to control work place hazards. During this time period there was the parallel growth of the private practice consultants and litigation also grew in the field. There was a return to the environmental side of IH issues. Public health concerns arose, such as asbestos, lead, formaldehyde, radon, mold, and mold among others. Currently, manufacturing is leaving the U.S. In the future Howard sees more litigation, a change from a historical sampling perspective of finding the worst concentration and performing sampling, to sampling too prove, a contaminant does not exist to do harm.

Mark took over and opened with that our profession is changing, we are becoming global professionals. Multinational corporations are influencing our industry, out sourcing and project management are moving towards the internet and e-commerce. Standards of contaminant exposures may be local, national and international, but are influenced by perception or by companies desire not to harm their brand. Environmental groups are now playing a role in watching companies environmental and safety adherence world wide. Companies now have operations all over the world, so our profession needs to or have access too information to operate in multiple markets. Local partnerships with fellow professionals may be one answer to assisting global companies. Use of the internet and e-commerce will continue to assist our profession to support new and on going EHS programs around the globe. EHS assignments are now being out sourced and task specific, but we will all need to plan for long term issues, set goals and review current EHS programs. Thus, online systems are becoming more and more important. We can utilize the world wide web to improve communication and collaboration within of our profession.

OCAIHA would like to thank Howard and Mark for the joint presentation. A special thanks to Ron Hutton of Allergan who’s firm provided the power point system for our dinner speakers.