Responding to Disasters: Training Can Overcome Issues in Disaster Response

Abstract

Training can assist in overcoming gaps in disaster response. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Worker Training Program (WTP) funds a network of nonprofit organizations, or grantees, that deliver peer-reviewed safety and health training curricula to workers across a variety of occupational sectors. Grantees’ experiences providing training for recovery workers after numerous disasters show the following issues need to be addressed to better protect the safety and health of recovery workers: (1) regulations and guidance documents not sufficient to protect workers; (2) protecting responders’ health and safety which is a core value; (3) improving communication between responders and communities to assist in decision-making and guiding safety and health planning; (4) partnerships critical for disaster response; and (5) greater attention to protecting communities disproportionately affected by disasters. This article provides insight into addressing these recurring issues and utilizes them as part of a continuous quality improvement process for disaster responders that may help to reduce responder injuries, illness, and death during future disasters.

Background

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Worker Training Program (WTP) (formerly the Worker Education and Training Program [WETP]) funds a network of nonprofit organizations, or grantees, that are engaged in protecting workers and their communities. Grantees deliver high-quality, peer-reviewed safety and health training curricula to workers across a variety of occupational sectors.¹ These include environmental clean-up workers, first responders, health care employees, industrial or construction workers, law enforcement officers, and transportation workers.

Training is provided under 6 program areas: (1) Hazardous Waste WTP; (2) Environmental Career WTP; (3) Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Disaster Preparedness Training Program; (4) NIEHS/US Department of Energy Nuclear WTP; (5) Infectious Disease Response Training Program; and (6) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) E-Learning for HAZMAT Program. More than 4 million workers have been trained since the inception of WTP in 1987.

Training has evolved significantly since the inception of WTP in 1987. This evolution is due to a series of lessons learned in safety and preparedness related to historic national disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, and other occurrences that place workers and communities at risk of exposure to hazardous substances. Over the years, the program has conducted several national technical workshops, such as “Best Practices in Using Technology in HAZMAT Training” in 2017 and the “Infectious Disease Workshop” in 2016, for the purpose of advancing training programs as new issues and emergencies arise.

The WTP HAZMAT Disaster Preparedness Training Program (HDPTP) was established in 2005 in response to lessons learned from national disasters, including the September 11, 2001, World Trade Center terrorist attacks (9/11). The HDPTP supports the development and delivery of disaster-specific training to prepare workers to respond to natural and man-made disasters. The training augments prevention and preparedness efforts in a wide range of high-risk settings and enhances the safety and health training of HAZMAT workers, emergency responders, and skilled-support personnel. It provides responders and recovery workers with site-specific hazards and mitigation techniques prior to and during response and recovery activities.

The WTP has been involved in response and recovery activities under the National Response Framework, National Disaster Recovery Framework, and National Contingency Plan. Each of these frameworks guides the nation on responding to all types of disasters and emergencies. Through its grantee network, WTP has a strong base of highly qualified instructional staff and trainers in various regions across the United States. Once activated and deployed to a site, WTP trainers may provide: (1) health and safety training specific to the event and assistance and support in the development and delivery of site-specific health and safety training through qualified WTP grantee instructional staff; (2) support for training delivery, such as curriculum development and subject matter expertise; (3) technical assistance, such as respirator fit testing and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) or other tool kits or resources; and (4) health and safety outreach to workers, volunteers, and community members who will be performing response and recovery activities.

NIEHS Experience With Disaster Response

During disaster response, workers may be exposed to a variety of hazards which may cause injury or illness. Figure 1 shows a timeline of disasters that have taken place since 2001.² The 2001 World Trade Center terrorist attack and the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill in 2010 were major disasters that profoundly influenced the NIEHS WTP and the development and implementation of training for disaster responders.

Figure 1.

Timeline of disasters since 2001.

The WTP and its grantees have been actively involved in disaster response for more than 30 years. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, staff from the Atlantic Center for Occupational Health and Safety Training (Atlantic COHST), a WTP grantee, were consulted to review, evaluate, and recommend potential changes to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey policy. WTP as an overall program started to delve deep into disaster training in response to 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. After 9/11, WTP grantees and program staff were present at the World Trade Center site and advocated for the development of health and safety plans that not only required training but also put the safety of workers at the forefront of the response and recovery efforts. Subsequently, NIEHS WTP grantees continued to expand their disaster response efforts through active involvement in the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill; Hurricanes Katrina, Sandy, Maria, and Harvey; floods in the Midwest; wildfires; and infectious disease out-breaks. WTP grantees responded to these disasters by providing critical training, technical support, and essential skills for workers and interested community members, such as how to don and doff PPE or how to conduct a hazard assessment. WTP grantees served as boots-on-the-ground and performed numerous activities—meeting with members of impacted communities, distributing needed PPE to workers at disaster sites, partnering with community-based organizations to deliver site-specific training, and related activities. Training ranged from delivering traditional classroom programs to meeting day laborers in store parking lots to deliver safety talks and teach how to appropriately wear N95 respirators.

NIEHS WTP’s National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training (Clearinghouse) has developed many training tools, companion booklets, and other resources to assist grantees and program stakeholders in their disaster preparedness and response training efforts. These tools provide health and safety guidance to those involved in disaster response and clean-up activities. Companion booklets are pocket guides that can be distributed with the training and used as a resource when workers are on a disaster site. The training tools and booklets address a variety of disaster types. Some materials are available in more than one language. For example, after the Gulf Oil Spill, booklets were made available in Spanish and Vietnamese to support impacted workers and members of these communities. Topics include hurricanes, floods, chemical incidents, oil spills, mold clean-up, and debris removal. The Clearinghouse partnered with WTP grantee CPWR (The Center for Construction Research and Training) to develop a disaster preparedness mobile app, which provides a full suite of training courses at the fingertips of workers exposed to hazards. The Clearinghouse website, https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/wetp, provides access to these resources.

Recurring Issues

Through NIEHS WTP technical workshop reports^3–12 and personal experiences with training efforts, the authors observed a number of recurring issues across disasters that puts workers at risk during response and recovery efforts. NIEHS WTP grantees have been able to address some of these issues but fall short on others. While some of these issues are external to training development and implementation, it is nevertheless critical to address them in order to maximize the effectiveness of new training programs aimed at protecting disaster responders.

Regulations and Guidance Documents Are Not Sufficient to Protect Workers

Historically, federal regulations have not and likely in the near term will not be issued in a timely fashion, leaving workers unprotected from known hazards for far too long. Additionally, it has been observed that federal guidance documents (which do not have the “teeth” of regulations) typically fall short of what is needed to protect workers.¹³ After 9/11, no site safety and health plan was approved until late October, and safety awareness training for World Trade Center responders did not commence until the end of November, months past the time frame needed to sufficiently protect these workers.¹⁴ More recently, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic clearly illustrates this point as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) continued to report, more than one year into the pandemic, that “[c] urrent data do not support long-range aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, such as seen with measles or tuberculosis. Short-range inhalation of aerosols is a possibility for COVID-19, as with many respiratory pathogens.”¹⁵ In March 2020, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued an alert¹⁶ and guidance document¹⁷ for employers on how to identify and control COVID-19 workplace exposures. The guidance document explicitly states that it “is not a standard or regulation, and it creates no new legal obligations.”¹⁷ Further, it states that the “recommendations are advisory in nature” while the intention is “to assist employers in providing a safe and healthful workplace.” Although OSHA enforced and issued violations of standards (i.e., 1910.134, 1910.132, and General Duty Clause), OSHA continued to revise their COVID-19 guidance¹⁷ but did not issue an emergency temporary standard (ETS)¹⁸ specific for COVID until June 21, 2021. Issuance of an ETS earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic would have required employers to take immediate actions to protect their workers. Guidance documents are helpful in providing information or interpretations of law, but they do not have the force and effect of law.¹⁹ OSHA states that workers are in “grave danger due to exposure to toxic substances or agents determined to be toxic or physically harmful or to new hazards and that an emergency standard is needed to protect them.”²⁰ Emergent conditions require the force of laws and regulations to protect workers.

Protecting Responder Health and Safety Is a Core Value

Ensuring the health and safety of disaster responders must be 1 of the primary foci of disaster response activities. Ensuring the protection of disaster responders involves training, hazard and risk assessments, provision of appropriate PPE, and injury and illness surveillance activities.

Responder Training.

The first step in keeping disaster responders safe is to ensure that they are trained and prepared for the disaster to which they are responding. Training is an essential element of disaster recovery. As mentioned earlier, site-specific training was not implemented at the 9/11 World Trade Center site for more than 2 months. In contrast, training for responders to Hurricane Sandy was provided immediately after the storm. Additionally, NIEHS WTP and the Clearinghouse updated and widely distributed the “Protecting Yourself While Helping Others” companion booklet during Hurricane Sandy²¹ in November 2012, less than 1 month after Sandy made landfall in New Jersey and New York. Intervention at this early stage provided the needed knowledge and skills to protect workers as they started response and recovery activities.

Training should include preevent and site-specific (sometimes referred to as just-in-time training) training to prepare workers for the work that they will be performing and the hazards that they will encounter. The failure to provide prevent vital core training prior to has been recognized as a weakness in disaster response, as is a reliance upon^22,23 limited site-specific training. Site-specific training is important but should not be the only type of training that is provided for responders. Site-specific training should focus on specific elements of the disaster while reinforcing core disaster response principles and practices.²⁴

It is essential to identify and deliver core disaster training to responders and workers on a routine basis prior to an event. As disasters strike, training should be supplemented with critical site-specific training to properly prepare responders and workers during the disaster, as well as provide ongoing core training to prepare for the next disaster. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, NIEHS asked grantees in New Orleans to provide work zone safety and waterway debris training to deal with the site-specific hazards faced by responders.

Conducting Hazard Assessments to Identify and Control Hazards.

Conducting assessments to identify and control hazards is critical. It is the employer’s responsibility to create a safe and healthy workplace.²⁵ Employers should routinely conduct hazard assessments to recognize, evaluate, and control hazards; likewise, they should also communicate this critical information to workers so that they can be protected from any potential hazardous workplace exposure. There are many hazard assessment tools available, including job hazard or safety analyses,²⁶ hazard mapping,²⁷ and others. The hierarchy of controls²⁸ provides a model to address workplace conditions by prioritizing the elimination of hazards before implementing controls that reduce exposures (e.g., providing PPE). Workers need this information so that they can make informed decisions about how to control hazards to which they are exposed.

Provision of PPE.

Responders must be prepared with an adequate supply of appropriate and properly fitting PPE and the corresponding knowledge and skills on the proper use of PPE to protect themselves from hazards they may face during their response activities. Preparing for the proper use of PPE is critical and has shown to be problematic for each disaster. During 9/11, responders did not routinely wear respiratory protection,²⁹ and it was difficult to have an adequate supply of respirators at the World Trade Center site.³⁰ During the 2009 H1N1 influenza response and the 2014 Ebola virus response, it was very difficult to get N95s, face shields, and other PPE needed to prepare workers for potential threats.³¹ The respiratory protection crisis brought on during COVID-19 was highlighted in the news seemingly every day.^32–34 Lack of PPE leads to exposures that may result in injury, illness, or death.³⁵

Workers and volunteers routinely complete postdisaster clean-up activities without proper PPE. Examples include workers who put up blue tarps on the damaged roofs of homes without personal fall-arrest systems and workers who clean mold-infested houses after flooding without respiratory protection. There is a significant gap between what should be done and what is done. Ensuring that appropriate PPE is available and used correctly is critical to keeping responders safe during disaster response and recovery.

Surveillance.

Significant gaps exist in health monitoring and surveillance for emergency responders and recovery workers.³⁶ Identifying who the responders are, maintaining rosters of responders and their response activities, and understanding potential exposures will help in tracking responders for long-term health effects. There are many types of disaster responders, and the surveillance must go beyond “traditional” responders. For example, migrant populations are now part of disaster response activities and move from disaster sites across the United States.³⁷ Tracking who is at the disaster site will enable for assessment of short- and long-term health effects, which in turn will help to inform our understanding of health risks and how response activities to future disasters could be improved.

Improving Communication Between Responders and Communities

Communication is critical for success in any situation. Planning for effective communication involves ensuring that all disaster responders and community members have access to information that can guide decision-making and ensure their safety. Communication gaps exist in the way response agencies communicate with each other. This was magnified during 9/11 where interoperable communications were not available between response organizations, and responders did not have the essential information available to make critical decisions. Ensuring that interoperable communication systems are available allows response organizations to share information that is needed to protect responders.³⁸ In 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a National Emergency Communications Plan, with a stated vision to “Enable the nation’s emergency response community to communicate and share information securely across communications technologies in real-time, including all levels of government, jurisdictions, disciplines, organizations, and citizens impacted by any threats or hazards event.”³⁹

Communication gaps are also frequently seen in the way information is transmitted to workers or community members, along with a lack of information available in multiple languages. OSHA requires that workers be trained in a manner that they can understand.⁴⁰ Providing resources in multiple languages aids the ability of nonnative English language speakers to understand information that will help assess risks and control hazards. After Hurricane Harvey in Texas, there was an inadequate supply of respirators and other PPE for day laborers.⁴¹ To address this gap, WTP grantees provided boots-on-the-ground training and distribution of PPE to day laborers. To overcome language barriers, information was provided to day laborers in both English and Spanish. The CDC guide “How to Properly Put On and Take Off a Disposable Respirator”^42,43 was distributed during a short training on how to wear an N95 during clean-up work. Training and resources must be in terms that are simple and relatable and take account of language comprehension.

Partnerships Are Critical for Disaster Response

Partnerships have been shown to be crucial to optimizing response efforts to disasters and emergencies. It is impossible for one organization to provide services to protect workers and the community. Bringing together national and local agencies, public and private entities, academic institutions, and community-based organizations will help address the needs of each community.⁴⁴ Planning involves meeting partners ahead of a disaster—meeting community partners should not occur for the first time during emergency. Creating and establishing partnerships ahead of time and analyzing the strengths of and synergies between the partners will lead to effective community planning and prevention strategies.

After 9/11 and anthrax events in the Fall of 2001, incident command system (ICS) training was increased, so that agencies were better able to coordinate activities. Understanding the ICS is important to know who the essential players are in the response efforts. However, the ICS alone will not fulfill all response efforts.⁴⁵ It is necessary that preplanning and review during the response activities take place with those involved and impacted by the disaster.⁴⁶ The Atlantic COHST, a NIEHS WTP Grantee, has created partnerships that improved future response to a disaster. Through a partnership, the Atlantic COHST and the New Jersey Department of Health provided training to public health professionals, homeowners, and volunteers responding to Hurricane Sandy. That partnership was valuable to ramp up training to respond to Ebola, by providing Ebola response training to prepare the public health workforce.

Greater Attention to Protecting Communities Disproportionately Affected by Disasters

Disasters are likely to impact some communities and populations more than others.^47–49 Whether it be a fence line community’s location to a nearby industrial plant or day laborers with limited language literacy, each group faces a disproportionate burden of risks and health impacts following a disaster. Understanding the issues that disproportionately affected communities face will allow us to enhance attention to social determinants of health in planning for future disasters. For example, communicating with workers in their native language will enable them to make decisions that impact their health based on the hazards they face while conducting disaster response activities.

These recurring issues in preparedness directly impact worker safety and health. As a collective of health and safety trainers, advocates, and activists, it is part of our responsibility to close these gaps and implement the lessons learned to ensure that workers are protected from hazards during disaster response.

The phase of the disaster impacts the type of activity that needs to take place. Preparedness activities should be conducted before a disaster, response activities during a disaster, and reviewing and improving activities after the disaster. The lessons learned in each phase of the disaster should influence the next stage. And when the disaster is over, lessons learned must be applied to improve preparedness and response, directly improving disaster responder health and safety. It is important that issues and lessons learned at each stage of the disaster are systematically collected to support after-action assessments and improvements. A diagram created by the authors (Figure 2) displays how the phases of disaster are cyclical and actions taken during each stage for 5 domains: hazard identification and control; partnerships; regulations and guidance; PPE; and training.

Figure 2.

Cyclical nature of and actions taken in the phases of a disaster.

Moving Forward

A better understanding of the gaps in disaster response can help to facilitate the development of new training programs. As training providers, there is a limit to the impact NIEHS WTP grantees can have on response and recovery activities. However, training is and must be seen as an integral role in disaster preparedness. Training provides knowledge and skills to responders, and training can incorporate and fill many aspects of the gaps that have been identified. Additionally, tailored assessments must be conducted to determine the types of training that are needed to keep disaster responders safe and meet their operational objectives. Several concepts to be aware of when developing training are community preparedness, risk communication, and postdisaster recovery and transition.

Community Preparedness

It is critical that issues of concern be identified at the community level. Training can help create situational awareness—an understanding that each disaster presents different scenarios with varying intensity, severity, and impacts. Community partnerships should be developed by bringing together different agencies and organizations for training on disaster response. Training, which includes table-top scenarios and exercises, fosters an inclusive approach to disaster preparedness and response. Training can also help agencies and organizations create consistent and actionable messages.

Risk Communication

Risk communication is essential in influencing how workers, agencies, and individuals respond to disasters. Identifying accurate, appropriate, and trusted sources of information is important to effectively communicate risks during disaster response. The way people obtain information has changed, and with social media, it is easy for misinformation to go viral. Overcoming viral misinformation is very difficult. Therefore, learning risk communication strategies, involving the community, and using trusted networks will help to effectively deliver information. By connecting with local officials, such as public health and building code officials, response efforts will better understand the issues faced by local communities. For example, during Hurricane Sandy, training was provided to New Jersey local public health and building code officials on postflood clean-up issues. The purpose of the training was to protect local officials as they conducted their inspections. The training also provided local officials with information and consistent messages that could be provided to the community when questions were asked about mold clean-up. Local officials are great sources of trusted information in the community because they know business owners and understand the community’s health issues and concerns. On the flip side, NIEHS WTP grantees can also be a valuable resource for them.

Postdisaster Recovery, Transition, Continuous Learning, and Integrating Lessons Learned

The term “return to normal” is heard after many disasters as people look to returning to how their lives were prior to the disaster. But what does it mean to return to normal? How do we do it? And when do we return to normal? Each disaster will dictate the answers to these questions. The key point is that after the disaster, the effectiveness of response activities must be assessed, lessons learned must be reviewed, and plans must be revised to incorporate and address issues that were not included during the response. Planning and preparedness are iterative processes.

Create Partnerships That Work

It is important to develop and expand successful partnerships to include community-based organizations, unions, worker centers, local health departments, and other agencies in the community. Responders should reach out to new partners that will close some of the gaps that we have identified before a disaster occurs. It is equally important to identify how partnerships work. The report from the 1997 WTP technical workshop, “Successful Training Partnerships,” states that partnerships are difficult to start, hard to nurture and grow, and likely to have rough stretches.³ This is important to understand as new partnerships are being developed. It is easy to underestimate the amount of work needed to develop and⁵⁰ sustain partnerships. But without partnerships, the work cannot be accomplished.

Increase Capacity Building

Capacity building is critical for successful training programs and continues to be a key factor for growth and expansion of training. The 2001 report from On the Cutting Edge: Best Practices of the Worker Training Program⁵⁰ includes capacity building as a key to training program success. The report focuses on institutional, personal, and community capacity building. Training programs must continue to expand the capacity to use and implement technology, teach new programs, and reach new audiences. There are changes in how some of these capacity-building efforts have started. For example, in the past, the focus was on how veteran trainers can help develop new trainers. During COVID-19, younger trainers provided guidance for some of the long-time trainers in the use of technology in the class. There is a need to continue to foster new ways and approaches in the capacity-building process.

Apply Comprehensive Training Approaches

Training requires a comprehensive approach. As mentioned earlier, core training needs to be provided before a disaster, and site-specific training during the disaster. Ideally, the site-specific training will provide essential elements that reinforce core training. OSHA regulations require training for many industries, but there is not a single core training standard for disaster response. The HAZMAT standard continues to serve as an important model WTP. OSHA’s Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER) standard, 1910.120, includes standard operating procedures that contextualize overall worker health and safety. It requires specific procedures that can be incorporated into existing or newly developed protocols for hazard identification and control. It also places responder health and safety at the forefront of response activities.

The immediate disaster cannot be the only focus of training. After 9/11, WTP identified the need to address mental health issues⁵¹; after the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill, WTP and the Clearinghouse developed a curriculum on disaster resiliency. Core training must be expanded to address worker and workplace issues by including modules on social isolation, drug use, suicide, and other mental health issues, long-term health effects, and other stressors or impacts from disaster response.

Since the beginning of COVID-19, training programs had to be innovative in the way training was provided. Training was provided on Zoom, Facebook Live, or other online platforms or socially distanced in a parking lot. Training providers should continue to innovate their approach to training so that knowledge and skills needed to protect workers are provided effectively and efficiently.

Analyze Iterative and Innovative Practices

Training is an iterative process. When new information is presented in disasters, that new information needs to be incorporated into and disseminated through training programs. Previous disasters have impacted the way training is conducted, and future events will force training providers to be innovative. The lessons learned must be incorporated as a quality improvement process, not just recorded and kept in a report that is never referred to again. The goal of training is to increase knowledge and improve skills to do a job efficiently. So as new information is identified, WTP grantees should update training programs and provide trainees with that new information, even if it contradicts what was previously known. Doing so allows the training community to incorporate evolving best practices and the most recent information so that responders are better prepared to do their jobs safely.

Apply the Precautionary Principle

Because the federal government is slow to create regulations or to advance guidance, the precautionary principle should be used as the basis for disaster response. The precautionary principle includes as one of its central components taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty.⁵² Responders must take preventive action when facing uncertainty, as this is a key element of worker protection. Responders will not know everything about the risks and hazards faced during a disaster, so it is prudent to be cautious in their response. When dealing with unknowns, such as a novel virus, it is prudent to take a more protective approach in the response activities. OSHA regulation 1910.120 requires that Level B PPE is the minimum level recommended on initial hazardous waste site entries until the hazards have been further identified and defined. A similar approach should be the case when dealing with all disasters, including COVID-19, mold, or dangerous dusts and vapors from collapsed buildings. Reasonable measures to avoid serious and plausible threats must be taken until information is available that allows for protective measures to be relaxed.

Conclusion

WTP has been successful¹ in training workers across the United States, including those responding to disasters. WTP grantees have identified best practices and lessons learned and applied them in subsequent disasters. For example, during Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the Atlantic COHST identified the need to train those from disadvantaged communities. During Hurricane Harvey in 2017, they provided training on PPE to day laborers on how to protect themselves when mucking and gutting homes impacted by the storm.

Identifying the recurring issues in disaster response is critical to advancing best practices, new content, and methods for trainers and the response community. Employers, volunteers, and other disaster responders must implement changes based on the lessons learned, not just identify them. Reviewing lessons learned, developing partnerships with and capacity in organizations and individuals, updating training, and utilizing these as part of a continuous quality improvement process for disaster responders will help to reduce responder injuries, illness, and death during future disasters.

Biographies

Mitchel Rosen, PhD is Director of the Center for Public Health Workforce Development and Associate Professor in the Rutgers School of Public Health, Urban and Global Public Health Department. Dr. Rosen’s interests include work force development issues for public health professionals, specifically in the concentrations of occupational health and safety, public health capacity development, and emergency preparedness.

Deborah Weinstock, MS heads MDB’s occupational safety and health practice and serves as the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ Clearinghouse for Worker Safety and Health Training. She has more than 20 years of experience working with government, labor, community-based organizations, academia, and the private sector to ensure that workers are safe on the job.

Megan Rockafellow-Baldoni, PhD, MPH is the Program Evaluator for the Rutgers School of Public Health, Center for Public Health Workforce Development and the Atlantic Center for Occupational Health and Safety Training.

Kenda Freeman, MPH, is a communication specialist with MDB, Inc. Freeman provides research and communication support for programs under the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) that span a broad range of public health topics, such as occupational health, disasters, and environmental justice.

Jim Remington is a Program Analyst at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Training Program. He oversees a portfolio of hazardous material training grants promoting appropriate and efficient use of federal funds to reduce injury and illness among industries with high potential for exposure to hazardous materials.