While you’re coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are many things you can put off until life gets back to normal. Hazmat training, however, is probably not one of them. If your—or your team’s—certifications are coming due, you have to renew your training, or you risk fines for non-compliance. (Expired or incomplete training certifications are…
Hazmat hopes 2020: If Dangerous Goods professionals ran the world
Every fall, we invite everyone who attends the Dangerous Goods Symposium (and lots of other hazmat pros) to answer one simple question: If you could wish for one thing in the entire Dangerous Goods galaxy, what would it be? Now, for the third straight year, we’ve compiled those answers to kick off our year with…
DG Symposium preview: IATA’s Nicolas Carlone on automation and virtual reality
Nicolas Carlone, Assistant Director of DGR and Cargo Publications at IATA, will speak on Dangerous Goods acceptance automation—and give a live demo of IATA’s new virtual reality training tool—at the 14th annual Dangerous Goods Symposium, September 4–6, 2019, in Chicago. During last year’s Dangerous Goods Symposium, we wrote, “Sometime in the not-too-distant future, someone will…
Dangerous Goods competency assessments: A level beyond training
Should people who handle Dangerous Goods be as competent at their jobs as doctors are at theirs? Philip Mondor thinks so. “Doctors, nurses and lawyers are subject to rigorous competency assessments based on robust science. We’re seeing an emergence of similar practices in occupational areas that have regulated aspects, like logistics.” Mondor is the president…
Dangerous Goods Symposium speaker LaQuita Donald on training millennials.
LaQuita Donald, CHMM, CDGP, at Genuine Parts Co., spoke about “Training Millennials at a past Dangerous Goods Symposium, hosted by Labelmaster. You may never talk with anyone who’s more enthusiastic about her role in the Dangerous Goods industry than LaQuita Donald. Yet she’s concerned about finding people to fill those roles in the future. She…
Besides hazmat employees, who else should get hazmat training?
Every organization handling Dangerous Goods knows (or ought to know) that employees meeting the definition of a “hazmat employee” need to be trained in accordance with 49 CFR, Part 172, Subpart H, unless otherwise excepted. Who’s a hazmat employee? The short version of the definition, from Part 171.8, is: “A person who … directly affects…
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…
Dangerous Goods Symposium Day 3—Lithium Battery Day
Day 3 of the Dangerous Goods Symposium has, for the last few years, been known as “Lithium Battery Day.” It’s only a half day, but the always-vigorous discussion panel gives the 300 DG pros in attendance a full day’s worth of information to digest. We’ll get to highlights of today’s panel in a minute. But…
Dangerous Goods Symposium Day 2—Dang Good Training
“We abbreviate’ hazardous materials’ to ‘hazmat,’” said Gene Sanders, kicking off Day 2 of the 2017 Dangerous Goods Symposium. “I say we shorten ‘Dangerous Goods training’ to ‘Dang Good training.’” Sanders, co-founder of W. E. Train Consulting, gave the 300 DG pros on hand an entertaining look at an assortment of horrific explosions, spills and…
Dangerous Goods Symposium Day 1—Why aren’t DG pros more confident?
At 8 a.m. on a clear September day, Chicago’s historic Drake Hotel looks out over Lake Michigan waters still sparkling from the sunrise. But a different sort of outlook drew the focus of the Dangerous Goods professionals assembled for the 12th annual Dangerous Goods Symposium—a view that was far more serious. Day 1 of the…