At last, the moment for which hazmat pros have waited untold winters! The final season of Game of Thrones starts Sunday. Everyone in the Dangerous Goods galaxy knows Game of Thrones is really about hazmat transport. For all its swordplay, palace intrigue and dragons, the show addresses the same issues hazmat pros deal with every…
The Labelmaster guide to Valentine’s Day hazmat shipping
Today is the day when people all over the world celebrate love. This celebration is often manifested by the sending of cherished missives and objects from lover to lover. While the standard Valentine’s card or box of chocolates requires no special measures, it’s important to realize that many romantic notions have Dangerous Goods implications. We…
Want to scare a Dangerous Goods pro? 7 costume ideas for Halloween.
A career in Dangerous Goods is not for the faint of heart. Not only might you work every day with stuff that’s explosive, flammable, poisonous and/or radioactive, but you’re also responsible for making sure that stuff gets transported safely. So you’re not going to spook a hazmat pro with a Michael Myers mask. There are…
Avengers vs. Solo: A movie review for hazmat professionals
So far, it’s been a great summer season at the movies for Dangerous Goods professionals. Two blockbuster movies about hazardous materials transport have already blasted their way into your local multiplex. We’re talking, of course, about Avengers: Infinity War and Solo: A Star Wars Story. Now, to the layperson, Avengers may appear to be a…
A hazmat pro’s graduation message for the Class of 2018
For the 51st consecutive year, no one from Labelmaster was asked to speak at a college or university graduation. And that’s too bad, because we feel we have important messages to share with the leaders of tomorrow. Here’s the speech we might have delivered. Congratulations, graduates! I’m sure many of you are wondering why (name…
Hazmat professionals! Here’s your 2018 Mothers’ Day Gift Guide!
Back by popular demand—it’s our last-minute Mothers’ Day gift guide for Dangerous Goods professionals! Nearly all hazmat professionals have mothers, are married to mothers or are themselves mothers. Yet no one but Labelmaster ever examines the formative role our mothers played in our Dangerous Goods development, or the critical question on everyone’s minds over the…
10 things your C-suite might not know about Dangerous Goods
In our 2014 Master Series video—“DG and the C-suite: What Every Executive Needs to Know”—Labelmaster President Alan Schoen says: “Unfortunately, the C-suite does not know a lot about the transportation of Dangerous Goods. They think we’re shipping nuclear bars from the waste treatment plant, and that’s not what it is.” How much has changed in…
Dangerous Goods transport technology: Wouldn’t it be cool if …
A couple of weeks ago, we published our 2018 DG Wish List, in which Dangerous Goods professionals from around the world shared their fondest dreams for the industry. Most of these wishes were pretty practical, from simplifying lithium battery shipping regulations to making sure shippers were better educated about hazmat. Others were grander in scale—like…
Don’t use hazmat software? Here are some things you might need
Of all the shocks in our 2017 Global Dangerous Goods Confidence Outlook, the biggest might have been this one: 26% of DG pros say they use no DG software – they use manual processes for any hazardous materials they ship or handle. Since we offer DGIS, the most sophisticated hazmat software available, we’d like to…
Remember these disasters? “Dang Good” training made sure they never happened.
This post is adapted from a presentation given at the 2017 Dangerous Goods Symposium by Gene Sanders, founder and manager of W.E. Train Consulting. Since we can abbreviate the words “hazardous materials” to “hazmat,” I say we shorten “Dangerous Goods training” to “Dang Good training.” It saves time, and it describes what we trainers hope…