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Expert has worked as a consulting industrial hygienist for 24 years. He is both a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and a Certified Safety Professional (CSP). He has conducted many detailed compliance evaluations/inspections and has developed helpful code interpretations for clients. Expert continues to provide comprehensive industrial hygiene services including air sampling, program development, and developing MSDSs. He has provided expert witness and litigation support work relating to OSHA compliance and industrial hygiene/toxicology issues.

Expert has an MPH in occupational health and a MS in Toxicology. Additionally, he has worked 24 years as a consulting industrial hygienist/toxicologist. During these years, he worked frequently with occupational physicians and nurses to ensure that physical and chemical exposure concerns were properly communicated to best ensure the health and safety of the workforce. He has helped to promote occupational health among workforces with previous known exposure to elevated airborne lead levels, chemical sensitizers, aromatic amines, isocyanates, diacetyl and very high occupational noise levels.

Expert has inspected numerous chemical fume hoods and face velocity indicators as part of his laboratory evaluations. He has worked closely with ANSI Z9.5 and ASHRAE 110 testing requirements. He has performed modeling and reviewed empirical information to demonstrate that properly exhausted chemical fume hoods do not require fire suppression in their exhaust ducts. Expert first became familiar with the operation of chemical fume hoods while working as a Biologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Expert has provided laboratory safety consulting services to numerous universities, pharmaceutical and biotech companies through the years. These services included many laboratory safety evaluations of R&D, QC and clinical laboratories. He has frequently presented topical laboratory safety issues at national conferences. He was the Chair of the AIHA Laboratory Health and Safety Committee and spent several years as a research biologist before turning his attention to industrial hygiene and laboratory safety.

He served as product steward intermediary for a chemical manufacturer whose products were being ground to specification by a small contractor facility. His client wanted to be sure that the contractor had a responsible health and safety program so that they would manage products safely during grinding operations. His audit of the contractor’s facility revealed many serious health and safety issues and the almost complete absence of a meaningful health and safety program, including:

Noise levels in excess of 105 decibels;
Minimal local exhaust ventilation with particulate levels up to 45 milligrams per cubic meter of air during charging;
High prevalence of occupational asthma in the workforce;
No medical surveillance in place, inadequate personal protective equipment, poor housekeeping, no written health and safety programs and little safety training for the employees.

He worked to educate the contractor’s management and put health and safety “on the map” at the facility. An occupational physician was contracted to provide physicals, including spirometry and audiometric testing, for the workers. He developed written programs for hearing conservation, respiratory protection and hazard communication. He worked with management to provide adequate hearing protection, respirators and other personal protective equipment. He trained management in how to provide relevant safety training for employees. With the contractor’s high employee turnover, training could be performed more cost-effectively by management, thus avoiding frequent return trips. He also proactively reviewed Material Safety Data Sheets on new compounds entering the facility, and provided health and safety handling suggestions up-front to reduce potential problems, e.g., development of chemical sensitivities with resulting loss in productivity.

Improved working conditions and management interest in health and safety were met with enthusiasm by the workforce. His conscientious efforts and persistence resulted in a health and safety culture change at the contractor’s facility. This met the chemical manufacturer’s goals, improved the business climate for the contractor, and resulted in a safer workplace – a winning situation for all.

He served as a member of a corporate audit team performing comprehensive health and safety audits for U.S. and foreign sites of one of the largest biotechnology companies. Operations at the sites included research and development laboratories, manufacturing, cell culture facilities, central utility plants, and laboratory animal facilities. The audits targeted health and safety regulatory compliance, compliance with corporate standards and use of best laboratory practices.

These audits operated on tight deadlines with a requirement that findings be written up on-site during the audit. Knowledge of state-specific health and safety requirements was essential. Draft audit reports, closely scrutinized by corporate health and safety personnel and corporate attorneys, benefited from his clear and concise written communication style. His expertise in laboratory safety, health and industrial hygiene were critical to the success of the audits.

He was retained by a defendant’s attorney to serve as an expert witness in a case brought by a plaintiff who claimed that her birth defects resulted from her mother’s occupational exposure to lead. The plaintiff’s mother worked in a factory that assembled lead-containing equipment while she was pregnant with the plaintiff. The plaintiff brought an action against five separate companies that supplied lead-containing components for the equipment being assembled, asserting an enterprise theory of liability. He performed emissions modeling to determine the percentage of fault that could be attributed to the defendant in the event that the plaintiff prevailed on her theory of liability. The modeling demonstrated that the potential exposure to lead from the defendant’s product was substantially less than would otherwise have been expected if the parties had simply relied upon apportioning blame based on sales figures for lead-containing components. Additionally, his command of the fine points of the industrial hygiene and toxicology of lead assisted the defendant’s attorney in his interrogation of the plaintiff’s key witnesses. Shortly after those examinations, the plaintiff dropped the case against the defendant.
He served as an expert witness in litigation involving an individual alleging medical symptoms and an increased cancer risk from exposures at a hazardous waste site. The plaintiff operated thermal remediation equipment to clean soils contaminated with coal tar residues containing polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and other chemicals. Site workers did not have appropriate personal protective equipment or access to adequate decontamination facilities, resulting in dermal exposure to site contaminants. The plaintiff claimed that his exposure was due to the failure of the former site owner and its prime contractor to fulfill their health and safety responsibilities at the site.

He critically reviewed depositions, site plans and other documents, and integrated previous hazardous waste experience and detailed knowledge of OSHA requirements to develop an expert opinion supporting the plaintiff’s claim. He developed insightful lines of questioning to guide the plaintiff’s attorney when deposing key witnesses. A critical contribution he provided was an argument based on OSHA’s multi-employer worksite policy. Based on this policy, the former owner and its prime contractor were the “creating” (created the hazard) and “controlling” employers (had responsibility for health and safety conditions at the worksite and authority for ensuring hazardous conditions were corrected) and thus had ultimate responsibility for health and safety at the site. He developed and supported a compelling argument that these companies had failed in their duty to provide a safe and healthful worksite, thus causing hazardous exposures to the plaintiff.

Expert developed/revised over 600 material safety data sheets (MSDSs) in the past 20-years, for products ranging from pharmaceutical intermediates and active pharmaceutical ingredients to specialty chemicals. The work included researching the toxicology and hazards of ingredients, developing nuanced language to address different target audiences, including employees and downstream users. His final work product was complete, specific and technically accurate, and meets OSHA requirements (29 CFR 1910.1200(g)) and the most recent ANSI Z400.1 guidelines, while integrating elements from the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS), a United Nations initiative for global hazard communication. These high quality MSDSs helped to protect employees and downstream users, meet regulatory requirements and reduce future product liability.