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Jeffrey S. Lee Lectureship

2008 Lecturer

Lecture Title: Tipping Point for Industrial Hygiene and Safety – Opportunity Seized or Opportunity Missed?

Lecturer: John L. Henshaw, CIH, MPH, President, Henshaw and Associates, Inc., Sanibel, FL

John L. Henshaw, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor and Director of OSHA, will discuss whether we are at a tipping point regarding the recognition of our profession and whether that recognition has added value to worker health and safety. Many believe we are at such a point given recent positive indicators of environmental safety and health (ESH) value recognition and the increasing pressure from market forces around responsible health and safety practices. There appears to be a greater opportunity today to sell the value of ESH, not just to the manufacturers but to the consumers, boards of directors and investment communities. Product safety (a.k.a. consumer safety) and environmental issues will be the most popular issues, but we have an opportunity to make sure worker health and safety are in the mix.

Mr. Henshaw received his master's degree in environmental health administration and industrial health from the University of Michigan in 1974 and his undergraduate degree from Appalachian State University. He served as president of AIHA from 1990 to 1991 and chaired the AIHA Foundation's endowment campaign in 1996. He has served on the EPA National Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Advisory Board, on the University of Michigan and St. Louis University advisory boards, the Registrar's Accreditation Board (RAB) and the joint RAB-ANSI (American National Standards Institute) board for environmental programs.

Mr. Henshaw has authored articles on safety and health management as well as chapters in
industrial hygiene and management textbooks. He also served three and a half years in the Air
National Guard as a bio-environmental engineer with the rank of Captain and was honorably
discharged in 2000.

On June 13, 2001, he was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 3, 2001 to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a position he held until January 1, 2005. As U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, he led the Agency’s efforts to ensure worker safety and health in the United States by working with employers and employees to create better working environments. Prior to becoming the OSHA administrator, he served as Director of Environment, Safety and Health for Astaris LLC, a joint venture between Solutia and FMC Corp., and he held similar positions at Solutia Inc., and Monsanto Company in St Louis, Missouri.

Mr. Henshaw’s lecture will address some of the positive indicators focused on environmental safety and health, and explore bold, innovative and creative ways the profession can capitalize on conditions that quite possibly could result in future historians declaring the first decade of the 21st Century as the “Tipping Point” of the Industrial Hygiene profession.

FOHS has an alliance with ACGIH^®. Visit their website at http://www.acgih.org.