121: From School Teacher to Associate Professor of Occupational Safety

Jill James:

This is The Accidental Safety Pro, brought to you by HSI. This episode was recorded September 6th, 2024. My name is Jill James, HSI's chief safety officer. And today my guest is Dr. Jan Handwerk. She is associate professor of occupational safety at the University of Central Oklahoma. Jan joins us today from Edmond, Oklahoma. Welcome to the show.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Thanks.

Jill James:

Well, I was so excited to meet you the first time that I saw you across the screens at NSC's Women's Division. And I'm like, "Oh man, this woman's got a story and a life." And I'm so grateful that you decided to say yes to being a guest.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

My pleasure.

Jill James:

Yeah. So Jan, how many years have you been in this profession?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Since 1982.

Jill James:

Yeah, a long time. A long time. Fabulous. A lot of experience for our listeners to learn from. Before you became a professor, if we rewind and go way in the Wayback Machine, how in the heck did this start for you? What got you into this before we get into the education piece?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, when I graduated college, way back, so this is a brief piece.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I graduated college with a teaching degree in physical education.

Jill James:

Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And went back and got a biology and math certificate, a math upgrade, so I could teach math and science and physical education. Now, as part of all of that, of course, in science, you learn about safety so you don't blow any fingers off in class, or in safety in physical education and coaching and make sure our athletes are well-tuned and our students in class don't get hurt on a balance beam. So it was always part of my psyche as a young professional in teaching. I'm also fortunate to come from a blue-collar family and saw some firsthand stuff about what happened in a workplace. And my grandfather almost had gotten killed in a construction accident early on in the 1950s. And I vividly remember that as a child with my grandparents and my mother and things like that. So I saw firsthand some of those things that happened in the workplace. Didn't think much about it.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I taught for a while. I went out and I taught professionally for a while and I decided that I wanted to leave teaching for a few reasons. So I left teaching and took a position as a utility construction substation mechanic is what it was back then. It was called an electrician mechanic with a utility company. And I went through my-

Jill James:

Holy cats.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

What?

Jill James:

How did you make that switch?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

The children, finances-

Jill James:

No, I just meant how, not why. That's a big shift.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I worked... Well, not really. I worked my way through college.

Jill James:

Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I worked for... And people maybe my age would remember the old Admiral TV. I worked for the Admiral TV company making televisions way back when they had tubes.

Jill James:

Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And so I worked in electronics and I was fortunate enough to be trained a little bit through Admiral Corporation as a worker into some of the electrical pieces. So when there was a job that opened at an electrical company, I thought, "Gee, that's great." I love being outdoors, I like of course, being an athlete, so that was going to give me some activity. My family comes from construction, so I'm familiar with that. And the job opened up and I thought, "Gee, this would be great." So I just needed a change and I was hired. And that's how I got into the utilities.

Jill James:

Wonderful. Jan, I've got a couple of questions. A-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

We're going back [inaudible 00:04:12].

Jill James:

No, this is good. I'm just curious.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

All right.

Jill James:

Where did you grow up?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Jill James:

And you said you were-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

George Washington... If anybody doesn't know where that is, that's right across the bridge from New York City at 168th Street, if you know New York City, at The Bronx. And it was the George Washington Bridge. And you may remember a few years ago about Bridgegate with the big [inaudible 00:04:37] where they closed the George Washington Bridge for construction and backed up traffic up there for a political stunt. I'm from Fort Lee.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm. And you mentioned you were an athlete. What was your sport of choice or what maybe still is?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, my sport of choice, I was in track and field. I lettered in track and field before Title IX, and I also played basketball and softball.

Jill James:

Mm. Okay. So back to the substation.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Okay.

Jill James:

Thank you for that context, because I was wondering how a math and science teacher went into the utility industry. This makes sense now.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, my grandfather, back in the day, there was no childcare, so my mother would drop us off down at where my granddad was, at the construction company. And the big cement mixers and all of that, we'd play in the buckets and fill it with water of the big bulldozers. And that was our swimming pool for a while, so...

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

We made it to puberty, so I guess we were safe at some point.

Jill James:

I guess it worked. I grew up, my mom worked for a period of time at a Ready Mix.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, yeah.

Jill James:

And I would go to the Ready Mix office after school, and she was doing calculations measuring and doing estimating for yards of concrete and things.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah. Yeah, I'd go visit my granddad who looked like a snowman because he was working a jackhammer with no protective equipment other than a bandana on his face.

Jill James:

Man, silica exposure before you knew it was the thing. Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Absolutely.

Jill James:

Okay, thank you for that. Thank you for that divergent off of your trail. So back to the substation job. Thank you.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So I took a job as a substation mechanic. I was an athlete, so I'm 5'7.5", and I was an athlete, so I was muscular. So it wasn't like I... And I did go in a dress at that time, to be interviewed, of course. And they took a shot at me. And I went into work and went through my apprenticeship, Local 2 out of St. Louis. And they saw that the college degree helped, being the teacher helped. They asked me to fill in one time for a safety meeting, and I did, and they were impressed. They asked me to fill in one time in a CPR First Aid course, and I hit a home run. And at that point I was kind of asked would I get involved at safety? And that's how I got into safety initially. From there, it's history.

Jill James:

Yeah. So what happened in that history then? So you got turned on to the field?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I did. What I got turned on to was lousy training.

Jill James:

Ah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Being a teacher.

Jill James:

Yep.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I got into having to go in and have a bunch of adults sit there and read a book or read an article and then have a discussion when most of these folks weren't avid readers, nor were we geared to reading in our job classification, not to the extent of scholarly reading. So we would get the National Safety Council handouts because my safety guy was fantastic and he's still alive. And I want to throw out a kudos to Claude Hawkins in Lee's Summit, Missouri, because he was the guy that said, "You have something special. Would you like to join us?" And that's essentially how I got into safety full time. Because as a person, as a mechanic, as a safety person in the field, I was rewarded for having a college degree. And I eventually found myself in a supervisory position in the office where I was able to do other things. But what really turned me on was that these guys deserve better and what we're giving them is not. And I was so grateful that National Safety Council had those little weekly handouts and Claude [inaudible 00:08:43] those. And I would expand those little handouts to be appropriate for what we were doing in the workplace that week. Which then became, I guess the JSA attitude of here's what we're going to be facing this week, here's going on. And I would combine some of the handouts we got from Safety Council into safety training. And that's how that all started. And when the company saw that I had an ability to do that, they offered me a position in safety training and development. And I had 17 locations where I oversaw safety training in two states, because we had part of Illinois as well. So I did safety and technical training then for almost 15 years before I left.

Jill James:

Well, you had quite a trifecta going for you. I mean the teaching background, you had the knowledge of the actual work because you did it. And you had the technical information that you needed from the National Safety Council that you were able to put all of those things together. That's beautiful.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Lesson planning. That's what you do as a teacher, it's lesson planning. And essentially that's kind of what I introduced to everything. So I was fortunate. And then as I like to say, that's the early days of safety because full protection wasn't even in place for... And remember, this is utilities, so there was a lot of other general industry stuff in place. And we were utilities, which was a whole different world out there at the time.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm. And OSHA itself as an agency was really still in its infancy.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Mm-hmm.

Jill James:

Yeah. So 15 years at that. Then what happened?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, after a total of 18 years, there was a lot of downsizing going down. And at that point, if everybody remembers the economy. And they wanted to not eliminate but pare back, pare down on some departments, ours being one of them. And I really didn't want to do that much more traveling. I was traveling 80% of the time, and it was getting wearisome for me. Even though I enjoyed what I was doing, it was still a hard task. And we had taken on a merger and extended my travel, clear up almost... well, almost to Chicago. And between Excelsior Springs and Kansas to Chicago, that was more than I wanted to tackle. So at that time, the University of Missouri was looking for a safety person, they wanted to start a safety program. So I went to the University of Missouri in Columbia, and I was hired on as a safety coordinator. And we developed a safety program for the University of Missouri.

Jill James:

Wow. So you're a founder of that. Fantastic. Does it live today?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yes.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yes. At the time, the University... And I don't want to say anything bad about the University of Missouri. The University of Missouri had a wonderful EHS department.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

It dealt with 14,000 employees at the time and twice as many students.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And it was environmentally centered.

Jill James:

Mm. I see.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And they offered safety training, they really did, and it was quality safety training. But the Department being laborers, felt a need to have a full-time safety person there outside of what our Environmental Health and Safety group was doing. Because they of course, did all the chemicals, we had our nuclear reactor, we had the fire systems and all of that. So the university decided to put on a safety coordinator for the work staff at the facilities group, the construction maintenance. That's the gang that needed some help, power plant, all of that. And with my utility background, I fit in not only in the construction maintenance piece of that business, but also with custodial services and the power plant. So I took that position and stayed there for, I don't know, maybe six years.

Jill James:

Wow.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And then 9/11 hit.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I had family out East. And the day that happened, I was teaching CPR and First Aid. And one of the office staff came and said, "Something hit the World Trade Center." And I thought, at first I said, "Oh, something's always hitting something out there." Because it was not unusual for planes to hit things occasionally because of the size of the buildings. But when I went out on break and saw what was going on, they had brought in a television feed, a TV feed, and my heart dropped. And I immediately told my boss, I said, "I need to call home." And I called home and I couldn't get anybody. And I called my cousin who was working in the building, and nobody answered. And that was before cell phones, so I was on a regular dial phone looking. And I finished the day, went home, and it was eight o'clock that night when I was finally able to get ahold of my mother. And they were okay. My brother-in-law, we couldn't find my brother-in-law, who was in The Pentagon at that time. My sister didn't know what was going on in Germany. She was teaching in Germany in DoDDS, and she went to lockdown. So she didn't know what was going on. Yeah. So after all of that happened, I decided that I wanted to move back East and be closer to my family because my parents were elderly. So at that point, I left I University of Missouri, and I went to work in GM, at GM up in Buffalo through a third party. And I did oversaw the construction safety for the $354 million Tonawanda Engine plant redo.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And so I moved up to Buffalo so I could be closer to my family.

Jill James:

Mm. Wow. So you had a... Did I get this right? A brother-in-law in the Towers? No.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

No, no. He was at The Pentagon.

Jill James:

He was at The Pentagon, and a cousin in-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah. And my cousin was an electrician in a basement.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And my uncle was a police officer on the railroad.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I didn't know where anybody was.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And it was the worst day of my life.

Jill James:

Yeah, I believe it. I believe it. Yeah. We all have our memory. We all have our memory-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Right. And I needed to be... Being the only child to elderly parents in the States, I needed to get up there because my sister was not. My sister was in DoDDS, and she was teaching overseas. So I made the conscious decision to leave where I was and try to get back to the East Coast because my parents were elderly.

Jill James:

So how long did you stay in Buffalo?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, that's when the bug bit me.

Jill James:

Oh, okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I was in Buffalo, that's when the PhD bug bit me. I was in Buffalo and I was doing healthcare up there for Ascension Health after I left General Motors. I left General Motors because I couldn't work the hours. My mom had developed Alzheimer's. So I was having to travel back and forth to New Jersey at the time. And I made the decision to move my mother up to my home in Buffalo. So we added an addition to my house. And I moved my mother up, and at that point, I couldn't work the mandate. I had a lot of hours at GM, I was averaging 60, 70 hours a week. And I couldn't get... I was the only caregiver to my mom. So there was a hospital position open. A friend of mine was the occupational health nurse and said, "Hey, they're starting a safety program for employees. You want a job?" And I thought like, "Yeah, this would be great." And I went up there and became a... That was my first introduction to healthcare safety for workers. And we developed a workplace safety program up there. We got a grant, we developed that. We had a wonderful grant that was supplied to us, and we were able to outfit a lot of patient rooms with lifting devices for the nurses, because when I got there, we were 24 man years in a small hospital. It was 24 worker years of back injuries from the nursing staff. And we reduced that with the grant and the safety program down to two after three years of working in the program. It was that time when a friend of mine from ASSP, ASSE at the time, said, "Hey, I'm going on sabbatical. Do you want to teach my safety classes?" So I said, "Okay." So I went down to Buffalo State College, which is [inaudible 00:17:28] system. And I taught the safety classes while he was gone. And the teaching bug bit me. And I decided to go and get my master's degree. So I got my master's degree, absolutely fell in love with education all over again.

Jill James:

Did you get it in education?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Or what did you... Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I got it in education, yeah, with a safety... Yeah, of course, Social Foundations of Education, because I thought that would be the best fit for me because I'd been out of teaching for a while. And I wanted to see how the social foundations had changed in education over the years. So I did that as my center of focus. But I did my comps on women in safety when I did my comprehensive exams, that was my project was on women in safety. And at that point, I had a professor say, "You really ought to go for your PhD." And I thought, "Well, I haven't thought about it." And thought about it. But gee, that would be a great retirement job doing something I love.

Jill James:

Uh-huh. Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah, right? Go get a PhD just for fun. So that's what I did. And I had a choice of five universities in the North, including Canada and Oklahoma. And I said to my dad, who was living with us, and my mom, of course, "Dad, I've got this opportunity." I'm explaining to him, and I'll leave the swear words out, but he wanted to go somewhere... He wanted to go somewhere hot, the Buffalo winters just weren't his style. So I thought, "Okay, we'll go to Oklahoma." And we came down here. That's how I got here. Finished my PhD and now I'm teaching.

Jill James:

Oh my gosh. So Jan, when you were working on your master's degree and you did a focus on women in safety, tell us a little bit about that.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

As a woman in safety, my PPE never fit. So I think that's a given for any woman in the profession that at some point, something doesn't fit. And in my job at the utility company, they told me, of course, to the boots, put socks in them. So I would have six or seven pairs of socks on to try to get into my utility... And they gave us PPE because we were around high voltage.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And so I'd wear that. And we had switching gloves, which were 20,000 volt gloves that we used if we did switching and stuff, because we were around 161,000 volts. And my gloves would fall off when I walked. I [inaudible 00:20:00] to walk with my hands in the air so my gloves didn't fall off.

Jill James:

Good Lord. Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I do remember one time throwing a switch. It's a big switch handle where you take two hands and you manually shove this thing open in three big switches 20 feet in the air open to break the line. So it's like a big circuit breaker.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I remember losing one of my gloves. And the rule was, you never stand under a switch when you switch it out, because if the switch is broken, it'll come down on your head. So you always kind of did the switch and run. And there were my gloves sitting on the ground. And it just so happened that Claude was there, my safety person. And he turned right around, he says, "This is not... Get her out of those gloves. Don't do anything until we get her gloves."

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And then he saw my boots and he says, "What?" And then he took me personally to find a pair of boots that fit me. And as an apprentice, I didn't know that wasn't okay to have PPE that didn't fit. I thought that was okay. I thought it was okay to stuff stuff in my hat to make my hard hat fit. I thought it was acceptable to wear six or seven pairs of socks for my boots. And it was after two years of working that I realized that it wasn't okay if my personal protective equipment didn't fit. And that became the center of what I was doing. And when I went to work at the utility, it was okay for me to have long hair and earrings, but the men had to keep their hair short and not wear earrings.

Jill James:

Yeah, interesting.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And that became obvious to me.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I questioned my boss. I said, "How come it's okay for me to have long hair and wear earrings, it's not okay for them?"

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And he didn't say anything. I did cut my hair.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I cut my hair, and I didn't wear jewelry just because of the guys, in reference to the guys. And that all hit me when I was working on my master's, especially, looking at the philosophy of things that I was looking at, and I was able to study some of the women's movement stuff. We very much looked at a lot of the women's movements, the early women's movement, the Lowell Girls, things like that. And it became really interesting to me that here I worked... I like to call myself the unrealized feminist. Here it was in the 1990s, and I had completely missed the feminist movement because I was it.

Jill James:

Yes, you were it. Yes.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I was it, I was in the work [inaudible 00:22:35]. And I was thinking, "Well, no, all of this was going on [inaudible 00:22:38] I was busting my tail and I happened to put up with all these things these people are writing about." So it really became [inaudible 00:22:47]. Yeah, it came interesting to me. And I decided to study it, so that's kind of how I got into this women's studies thing. I kind of lived through it, now I'm going back and studying about it.

Jill James:

Makes so much sense.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

We have some of the stories that probably would match some of the things I had to read about. I was kind of like a walking history book to some of these students.

Jill James:

Exactly. Exactly. Oh my gosh, maybe we should do an entire episode just on the interesting things that we've seen and experienced.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, today, I think, and don't quote me, I am going to ballpark this roughly 2,000 members are only women in ASSE, ASSP, excuse me.

Jill James:

Yeah, right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

There's only 2,000 of us.

Jill James:

Yes. Yes, that's right. We're still absolutely a minority. As you're describing your six pair of socks, I was just at ASSP's National Conference in Denver, a few, I don't know, it's probably been a month now or something from this recording. And I don't know if you've been there when they have the PPE, what's it called? They have a fashion show. It's a fashion show.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

[inaudible 00:24:02].

Jill James:

Yeah. And I'm just, as you're describing what it was that you were wearing working in the utility industry, I saw those clothes in the runway show and how well they fit women now.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah, that and FR clothing. Look at the FR clothing.

Jill James:

Yes. Right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

It was made for a man's hips, not for mine. I'm of Italian descent, and I like to consider myself more like a Da Vinci picture. They just don't fit me. And women are built differently and need things to fit properly. And the FR clothing is one that really, really upset me. And when I went down to Congress last week, National Safety Council last year, Congress, I couldn't believe the FR clothing. And they were bragging that they have women's clothing. And it had a pink stripe to differentiate from the men. And it's like, "Why would I want to differentiate from the men?" Even today, and in one way, and this person was just delighted that we had women's PPE out that [inaudible 00:25:16], and here's the FR clothing for the firemen or for the fire women, excuse me, said firemen, firefighters. And it was pink.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

The other thing that really just [inaudible 00:25:28] on me is the reflective clothing, because the standard requires certain amount of square inches.

Jill James:

That's right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And when does the PPE become the hazard?

Jill James:

Mm-hmm. Right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

But by golly, we've got that square inches of reflective material on that thing. So we'll see. We'll see. There's hope. At least there's a few things. Women don't drive this, money drives this. And until enough voices are out in the field working, and we are increasing in numbers in the field, manufacturers aren't going to change their mind for the good of it.

Jill James:

That's right. And FYI manufacturers, we don't need stuff that's pink.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I'm not saying pink's a bad thing, but if the guys want to wear pink, make it in guys' sizes too. Give somebody a choice. Just buy the pink one. First day I went to work at the university, I had a pink hard hat on my desk. And I picked up the pink hard hat. And the sad part was my boss thought this was just great. And I thought, "Okay."

Jill James:

All right. All right. I was so excited to see at the FR clothing you're talking about that they're making bras and underwear that are FR rated as well.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Absolutely. Yes, yes, yes. The static electricity is to get me crazy. And I mean, it's not even FR, but it was static electricity on my underwear. When I was around switching, I tried to find plastic clips on my underwear not to get electric shock every time I turned around with all the static electricity. And back then there wasn't FR rated clothing. Back then you had to wear 20 ounce cotton.

Jill James:

Yeah. When I was in training working for OSHA, a mentor, an early mentor of mine, Richard was his name, a former Air Force. And he just also didn't know what to do with me because he hadn't worked with a lot of women in his life. So he'd always call me Guy and it was hilarious. And I loved him. And we went to our first grain elevator together. And before we went, the day before we went to do the inspection, he calls me and he's like, "I know how you women like to wear your nylon underwear." And he said, "I need you to wear cotton underwear tomorrow." I'm like, "All right."

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, Lordy.

Jill James:

"Got it. Message received. Okay, understood." He's like, "You don't want that stuff melting to your skin." I'm like, "Thanks Richard. Appreciate you thinking about that."

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, nowadays, everybody's wearing the Under Armour nylon and rayon and... And I don't want to bounce down against Under Armor, they've got some really good stuff out there for workplace now, they've got a workplace line. So I'm really pleased with what I saw. But we had so many people wanting to stay in [inaudible 00:28:40] that they sometimes make poor choices. And the fear that I always had as safety was I don't check people's underwear. And I would only be able to harp on it in a safety meaning as to what they needed to protect them. And I was fortunate to work for a company that actually bought a bunch of this stuff and would take care of it for the workers. And they would bring the stuff in for all the fire retardant. And they would maintain it for us, we'd have a change out program with them and everything. And I think if companies, if you're a safety person with a company that's doing that, you really, really have it well, you got it good. Because to try to... How do you teach them not to wash it?

Jill James:

Right, exactly.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

You don't have any control over that. I think most companies that can afford it are using the change out programs from the suppliers that give it. And there's so many of them that do that now.

Jill James:

Yeah, I think there's a lot from the healthcare industry when you worked in that. That's known for having clothing that people wear that is often laundered by the employer, that there's something to be learned there. And anytime in biosecurity with animals, I worked in the poultry industry.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, yeah.

Jill James:

And same thing, it was employer provided clothing and laundered by the employer as well.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

[inaudible 00:30:07].

Jill James:

And it was for of course, the biosecurity of the product. But there's a lot to learn about... This works. This works. And it can work into safety as well for more than [inaudible 00:30:20]-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah. Again, if you look at... And the big thing about safety is if we can eliminate the hazard, we don't have to worry about the PPE.

Jill James:

Yeah, right. Exactly. So Jen, you're in Oklahoma, you finish your PhD, congratulations. Hey, who showed up for your graduation? Did you walk?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Of course. Are you kidding? After that kind of [inaudible 00:30:48]-

Jill James:

Wonderful.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

... that heartache, yes I walked. Nobody, my family, they all watched it on streaming video.

Jill James:

Oh man.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Nobody was able to get there, but a friend of mine and of course, my advisor was there. But everybody saw it on... they live-streamed it.

Jill James:

Yeah, wonderful.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So people overseas and everything were able to see it.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. So you're teaching now, how long has that been part of your life? And you said you wanted to do this because it would be a great retirement [inaudible 00:31:22].

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh yeah, it's great.

Jill James:

Is that where you've arrived-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

It's great. No, I love it. I love it. I love it. We're here. At the end of my PhD, it was like I didn't save enough money to quit my job. So I took a job my last year and a half here in Oklahoma and in a manufacturing plant. And my boss was great, he says, "Oh, we don't have a problem. Finish your... Do your writing, do whatever you need to do, allot yourself time to do all of this." Except sometimes in safety you can't allot time to it. So I wound up working for a couple of years there and then quitting to finish my writing. And I went ahead and finished my PhD and took a position as an adjunct because all I ever wanted to do was teach at the University of Central Oklahoma. When I came down here, I just fell in love with that place. And I wasn't living in Edmond at the time, I was living south of here in Norman near the University of Oklahoma. And I thought, "Wow, I really liked this school. It reminded me so much of Buffalo State." It's a smaller school, it's the largest of the regional schools, but it's a nice well-knit, it's a close well-knit group of learners and educators. And I absolutely fell in love with the place. So I took an adjunct position there because that's where I wanted to teach, I didn't want to teach anywhere else. And so when a full-time position opened a year and a half later, I applied for it and got it. But it was a visiting position, which was only year to year. And then eventually a full-time tenure track opened and I took it. So I've been there, let's see, I just got tenure and promotion, so that's 5, 6, 7, maybe eight years since... Well, 2016, since I finished my PhD.

Jill James:

Wow. Congratulations.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

[inaudible 00:33:07]. And I love it.

Jill James:

So who's coming to the profession now? What does enrollment look like? What are you seeing?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

It's interesting out here. We're really oil and gas. We're really a lot of oil and gas out here. And manufacturing and construction. So what I'm seeing coming in here, it's kind of an interesting mix. I'm getting folks in here from high school, of course.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I'm getting young folks in here and I'm seeing young folks, those people, I'm going to call them emerging adults. Emerging adults are those age groups that are on their own away from their parents. Does that make sense?

Jill James:

Yes, it does.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So I don't want to say that teenagers that just graduated. They're emerging-

Jill James:

I have one of those.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

They're emerging adults. They're not quite at home and they're not quite out on themselves yet. But they've got their own apartment, they're starting to pay their own bills. So we're seeing... Because juniors and seniors are mostly my group, because it's a two-year major. We're seeing that emerging adults coming with not much work experience. The other 40%, I think it's up to 40% now, are returning adults-

Jill James:

Ha. Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

... that are coming either because of whatever life experience has them looking toward a degree to come back to college and they choose safety, or in a case where I have students that are in safety in their job that want to do it professionally. So I have this great mix of knowledge about the field and workplaces and no knowledge about workplaces. So what I've got are groups of people that either know what a hammer does or they have no clue how many hammers exist. So it makes it really difficult for me at times to think through of who needs what and how will I help make the best safety professional. Does a safety... And go into these real philosophical things. That's what you get when you take Social Foundations-

Jill James:

[inaudible 00:35:09].

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

... is here we go, we're going to do the thinking thing.

Jill James:

Yes, please.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Are they effective if they don't know anything about the job?

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And we look at that as a group, we've got a fantastic faculty. Every one of us have been practitioners in the field. So we've got a really great blend of faculty that have working knowledge of the field who are not academics. So we put into place, I didn't, it was there when I got there. We have a wonderful internship, where these kids, where we get these merging adults out into the field to see what work looks like.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And that concerns me to a point. What are we putting out there? Are we putting out there people that are very knowledgeable without the practical piece that has to happen?

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

That's the scary... And I say that is a scary part only because I come from the other end.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I come from the end where these workers came back to college and took safety on for whatever reason. These folks are taking safety on and having no idea. And it's kind of like you did with OSHA. You know what OSHA kind of did until you saw your first fatality.

Jill James:

Yep.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And you come from a blue collar family too, so you have more of an understanding of people get hurt in the job.

Jill James:

Yep.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

That's the piece that I always am concerned about when we talk to these young folks coming in or these emerging adults that haven't been in a workforce before. There's nothing for them to relate to.

Jill James:

Right, exactly. And I think about that with my own emerging adult who's an engineer.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah.

Jill James:

Right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah.

Jill James:

And so the decisions that he'll make that will impact the labor force without his personal knowledge of it is always of concern to me. How can he get that knowledge? How can he gain that knowledge short of actually getting a job like that?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

How can we teach them to focus on that?

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

It's my ASP, GSPs, my GSPs. My GSPs know this stuff like the back of their hand. And we can do a JSA and we can do an accident investigation. And how do I put the emotion in there? And I don't want to do it too much. But yeah, we could show them pictures. Yeah, we can do this. Yeah, we can do that. And I think the emotional buy-in has to come after they graduate. Whereas, some of the returning adults have an emotional buy-in as they enter the program. And if there's one piece, and we can talk about cultural safety and all of that, but there's that one piece that as a professor, I sit there and I say, "I hope they grow into." Whereas, those folks that are coming in from the field have that. And I hope they are able to divorce themselves to what they know and see what's available, because safety has come from a reactive stage to now a proactive stage in our history.

Jill James:

Right.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

For so long we were reactive. [inaudible 00:38:43], there's OSHA. But now we're into a proactive, and that's the piece that your emerging adult is going to get into is that proactive piece. And I think that's the positive piece of these students not having any field experience, that we're looking at a proactive way to do something. So when they go out in the field and they see a tool being misused, they're going to look at it from a proactive eye instead of me coming from a safety background in the early days saying as a reactive. Does that make sense?

Jill James:

Right. It does make sense. And it does make sense and what you're describing is two sides of a coin, right? So the advantages and disadvantages of both the emerging adults and their academics and the people that are coming in with all the experience and [inaudible 00:39:31]-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Right. And I think when I talked to you the first time, and it's a funny thing kind of, is the first time I was teaching this first fundamentals class, they call it, I walked in there and we're talking about hammers and I saw all these blank stares. And I went out and I got a half a dozen hammers, different types of hammers. And I threw them on a table and I say, "Okay, what do these hammers all do?" I had these blank stares. There was two people that knew the difference between a ball-peen hammer, a claw hammer, a roofing hammer, and a concrete hammer. And it was like, everybody, wow, there's different hammers. And that's when it hit me, it was like, "Ha, ha, ha." Because we were talking about a JSA looking at tools, right? Tool for the job. And I always joke with, "How many of you used a screwdriver as a hammer." The hands all go up. Or "How many of you used a chair as a ladder?" And all hands go up.

Jill James:

Sure.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

We talk about it. But that was the one that I walked in and I walked into my boss and I said, "They don't know what hammers do." And then we started to revise.

Jill James:

Uh-huh. And so when you do these internships through the university, is it at the end of the academic experience or-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

No. During.

Jill James:

Yeah. Right. Okay, good. Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

They get to do several. They're not left to one, we have a wonderful... Our department chair is wonderful, he's got contacts throughout this area, in different states, big companies. We currently have people going to Halliburton and to Goodyear and big, big companies too, that give these folks opportunities. We have people that went to work at Boeing and were offered full-time positions. So many of our internships turn into full-time positions for these graduates, which great. But we have aeronautics, we have an airport here, the FAA helps us, oil and gas, construction, everything under the sun, including healthcare. And we like to tell our students to take something that you don't know about. Take something that may not be of interest to you at least once and see what it really offers you, it gives you more well-rounded. So we've got students that come back and say, "Oh, I never thought of going into transportation, but I really loved it." And they wind up with a job and very happy, so...

Jill James:

I think that's got to be a shift in academia. When I did that 30 years ago, the internships always came at the end.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Uh-huh.

Jill James:

And you're seeing the shift now where students are having, like you just said, multiple internships, multiple exposure points throughout the education. I think that's just so much more powerful to be able to apply what they're learning.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah. And I don't know how many students take how many or if they take more than one. And I don't have my finger on that particular pulse. I know they do. And I think it's a great opportunity for them to see what's really out there. Because so many people come... Well, so many of the students that are in our program that are emerging adults either have family in it or heard about it through a friend or something like that. It's not something that we see come from career fairs at high schools.

Jill James:

Sure.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So I would say not everyone, but the majority of our students will come in knowing safety or come in as general degrees, general program and say, "Wow, I really like this." And they'll take other things because we introduce a real low-level safety class too for freshmen. So some of them really get turned on by seeing some of the things we do. And we'll go from general studies into a safety degree, but that's pretty much how we get our enrollment.

Jill James:

Yeah. Beautiful. I wanted to ask about communication. You and I had spoken about communication, but when we had our little pre-chat about this. And you have thoughts on why it matters so much in EHS, and I'd like to hear you articulate your thoughts on that.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Well, 99% of what we do is communicate, written or verbal.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

But we're with people, we're a people group for the most part. We deal with people on a regular basis. And the way we speak infers what we're thinking. And I actually have a unit that we deal with that in communication when we do a little bit about, and I don't want to say behavior-based safety, I don't want to open that, but when we do site visits, I teach... Okay, so you come upon a site and someone's not wearing their hard hat for the umpteenth time.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

How do you handle it? And of course, everyone's reaction is, "I just tell them to put it on." And then my reaction is, "Well, but this is the sixth time." "Well, so once we'll write them up."

Jill James:

Safety cop mentality.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I said, "Okay, that's reactive safety." I said, "Now let's talk about proactive safety. How do you talk to this person?" And it gets dull, everybody gives me this blank stare. I said, "Do you want them to feel good about themselves or not feel good about themselves?"

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

"Oh yeah, feel good about themselves." "So how do you talk to that person and make them feel good about themselves and get them to do what you want them to do by putting their hard hat on?"

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And they'll stare at me.

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And so I explain it. I talk to them and say, "Hey, does that hard hat fit? Are you having problems [inaudible 00:45:17]?" I give them the old, [inaudible 00:45:19], the safety perusal. And then we go actually do one. We actually go out and I give them a scenario and they're going to go out and I make them look at what's positive first, and then address what they found wasn't positive and correct the work group. So that one person will go out and they'll have their little check sheet, and they'll be looking at their workers. And at this point we're doing a box lift or something in class. And they'll go up and the first thing out of someone's mouth is, "Oh, I see you're doing that wrong. You're going to hurt yourself. Let me show you how to do that right." And this is [inaudible 00:45:53]... And I stop them, I say, "How'd that make you feel?" And then the students express it. And this poor student who was doing the checking said, "I thought I was being polite." And I said, "Yeah, you were being polite, but you weren't making them feel good about what they needed to be doing and all of this other stuff." And she says, "I never thought about that." And all of a sudden that's that aha moment that every faculty member wants in a classroom is where that point of making the person you're dealing with the center of your focus and not the hard hat, becomes the essence of what we do as safety professionals and the way we communicate effectively to people.

Jill James:

Jan, you're making me want to come and do my education again and just learn from you.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

No.

Jill James:

It sounds like such an... Well, no, I'm not... Yeah, I'm saying that you're doing an excellent, excellent service to our profession in what you just described.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

But any safety professional that has been out there for a while knows what works.

Jill James:

Exactly

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

What my task is and what makes me stay up at night, and I do, I stay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get as realistic information to these folks so that something will stick in their head. Because I always say, "I don't care if you get an A, I don't care if you like me. I want to be that thing on your shoulder when you're out in the field and you hear me screaming in your left ear. I want to be that person on your shoulder." And I want you to say, "Oh, I remember Handwerk said this. Oh, now I know what she meant."

Jill James:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And the delight I get from a student that says, "Dr. Handwerk, I was doing a lockout-tagout and what you said just stuck right out all of a sudden. And I knew what to do."

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And that's the kind of thing that I like to see. Whether or not they get As in my class, with that letter after they graduate three years ago and say, "Everything you said was true." That's the piece that I think I enjoy.

Jill James:

Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking of the things that my professors in grad school said to me that do stick in my mind. I can hear the sentences all these years later. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. I wanted to-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Wait, wait. I want to ask a question to you. Is that allowed?

Jill James:

Yes.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

All right.

Jill James:

Of course.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

You shared with me on this communication piece when we were discussing this last week.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

You shared with me a story that I've kept and I jotted down about how you were first learning to communicate at OSHA and relying on how your parents or your background brought you to learn how to talk to people. Would you share a little bit of that? I think it's really, really important because in my mind, I said to a friend of mine after this, I said, "This person was a born safety person. This person should be in safety." Is what I said.

Jill James:

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Well, the story that I told was that as a little kid, my dad worked at a printing factory. And he worked on the printing presses. And so if you can imagine those giant, giant rolls of paper being put on one end of a press, and the press is basically a series of drums that are rolling and rolling and rolling, and everything's going really fast with ink being on these drums, but that's not what they're called in that industry. And then the paper goes through and things get printed on the page. And there are seven people that, at that time, probably not that many people anymore, that would run an individual press. And my grade school was next door to the printing factory. And my dad worked a swing shift. And so at the times he would get off at three o'clock, which is the same time my school let out, I would walk out of my parochial school across the street into the press room, onto the factory floor because there wasn't anyone who was not saying kids shouldn't go into the factory floor in the 70s. And sometimes I'd sell my Girl Scout Cookies to the pressmen because they were all men, and that's what their job title was, was pressmen. And I would wait for my dad's shift to clear. And so I was observing all of these pressmen and my dad, who was the lead, he would tell me about what everybody's jobs were and who was on his crew at the time. I knew everybody's names and I know that this one was the roll tender and this one was the packer, and this one was the pressman, and this one was the second. And I also knew what their injuries were because he would tell me that too, because this team of seven essentially became kind of a family. It's rows and rows of presses in this factory floor, but each press and each seven individuals became kind of their own little family unit. And so I knew their jobs, I understood what their jobs were, I knew when they got hurt, I knew what happened to them, I knew how long they were out of work. And when I got into the profession, the EHS profession, and especially as a kid in... I was an emerging adult when I had a badge and working for OSHA. And so I would go into these workplaces, show my badge, state my probable cause, people would get nervous, angry, name whatever emotion. And then I needed to conduct my work and look for hazards and have conversations with employees and interview employees. And every time something would come out of my mouth, particularly, when I was doing employee interviews, which is a mandatory part of the job with OSHA, I would just teleport myself back into that factory where my dad was. And I would think about what I'm going to ask needs to be framed in a way that my dad or those guys working on the press wouldn't respond with cocky college punk. What do they think?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Absolutely.

Jill James:

How would they know my job? How would they understand my job? And so I tried to always frame things in that perspective, in that lens that would've elicited an actual positive response or some kind of gained information based on thinking about how my dad would talk about what people understood or didn't understand about his job.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Right. And that's at the core of this, and you and I are both very fortunate in having blue collar backgrounds. This becomes that piece on how do we teach that to... how do you teach that to your emergent adult?

Jill James:

Exactly.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

How does that happen? So that's at the core of how we look this as a proactive, because again, like I said, safety is in a great space right now, we're at that proactive stage.

Jill James:

Yeah.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And I mean we're still at a reactive stage, but we've evolved from reactive. And I think that's what these degrees are doing and these professional certifications are doing. It's making us more proactive in our approach, because now we're also learning about knowledge backgrounds of how to avoid things with JSAs and lockout-tagout programs and safety management systems, and all of these things that we teach, where safety has evolved from that reactive. We had somebody killed, let's write a policy to where, let's put this in place to avoid an injury. And I think that's where we are in 2024. 21st century safety is looking hard at a proactive approach to eliminating carnage in a workplace.

Jill James:

Yeah, that's right. Whereas, so many of the rules and laws that we have are written in blood, as many of us have said forever.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Right.

Jill James:

And I've written one myself for the same reason. So when someone gets through their degree and they're launching or launched into their profession and we're engaging with our professional organizations, Jan, will you talk about the advantages that you see with the National Safety Council, the American Society of Safety Professionals?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So you're going to get me in trouble with both organizations.

Jill James:

No, I'm not. No, you have-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I have an opinion.

Jill James:

You have an opinion on what they serve and who they serve. What [inaudible 00:55:14]-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Okay. So let me preempt all of this. Everyone in my courses, and I know the other profs too, but I have them early on in their careers, so I get to do the head-beating. Is everyone in my courses must be National Safety Council student members. And I do this because it's free.

Jill James:

Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So we have students on scholarship that are needing... I'm not going to go down that path. But that's free, so that's mandatory.

Jill James:

I didn't know that, by the way. I didn't know that-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

What?

Jill James:

I didn't know the NSC had free student membership. I didn't know that.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, yeah. It's great. It's great stuff. It's great stuff. And it has scholarships. One of my kids was just [inaudible 00:55:53], and he's going down to pick it up next week. Anyway, that's [inaudible 00:55:56].

Jill James:

Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

All right. So the NSC always, they always get in there and I use the webinars for training and I let them do a webinar for midterm and all kinds of weird things with NSC materials. I get them into the habit of understanding what's there. I teach transportation. Of course, NSC has a great National Highway Traffic stuff, so I use NSC. I also use ASP. ASP is in our... We have a student chapter of ASSP. And they're great, they're fantastic. They help sponsor so much of what we do, including what we have out here, is the Safety Olympics. The ASP sometimes is not affordable, and we try to help with students that can't afford. It's not expensive, I think it's $15. So they become people of ASSP too. So most of our students carry both memberships. In my world, I look at NSC as being an advocacy to influence not only workplace safety, but home safety too. And they are in public policy to look at ways to reduce preventable injuries and deaths. They work with, and I just said National Highway Transportation Safety, especially with the vehicular injuries and accidents. They have many campaigns. I love National Safety Council because they have lots of campaigns, annual campaigns, monthly meetings, monthly topics. ASSP is a fantastic advocacy for helping the professionals and workplace standards. Having their history in an engineering group, they're fantastic about how they're working with ANSI and looking at some of the regulatory things to help refine some of the standards out there. I think in comparison, National Safety Council is more public safety at large and workplace safety at large. Where ASSP looks more at looking at the regulations and standards and the advancement of the safety professional. And NSC, they do the First Aid CPR, but ASSP of course, comes in with the GSP, the ASP, the CSP, which is the gold standard for us. So we look at ASSP for professional growth for resources. They give us technical knowledge, they help with leadership development. Does that make sense?

Jill James:

It makes total sense.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

They're both vital. They are both pillars of the industry. They are both pillars and they kind of have similar roles, but they really do have distinct roles, but they complement each other.

Jill James:

Yeah. Yeah. I love how you articulated that. It's just perfect. And I know we're butting up on our time today, but you just dropped a little something a second ago saying Safety Olympics, and now I'm like, "What the heck is that about, Jan?"

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Gosh. All right.

Jill James:

What are you doing okay?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Okay. What are we doing? A few years ago, many years ago, maybe 10 years ago, a group of faculty that have safety programs in the Midwest area here got together and said, "Let's get together and share." Because there was no guidelines for us. This is like Safety [inaudible 00:59:12] for the senior [inaudible 00:59:14]. So we were having developing safety programs. So we got together and we would get together as faculty and say, "Okay, what do we do?" And once a month we'd share, and somebody would take it over and we'd have [inaudible 00:59:24]. And we'd go to all different campuses. Somebody had the wild idea to have the students participate just to get together to see how our programs were. And they deemed it the Safety Olympics.

Jill James:

Okay.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

So several years ago, universities in our area, Warrensburg, OSU, us, Southeastern, few of the colleges that offer safety programs got together. And we just laid out the faculty of all these groups, laid out challenges. And we had, I think six or eight challenge spaces. Accident investigation, proactive safety, training. All of those things that the ASSP were looking at us to teach at that point. And we wanted to see how we were doing. And so we got together on a weekend and we did a Safety Olympics. And it's all of a sudden become a real piece now. And I think it's up to seven universities. But the piece to understand is ASSP supports that.

Jill James:

Oh my gosh.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

And that's a really big deal. ASSP and the local chapters support that Olympics as well as the colleges that send them. And I'll let you know that UCO won the first two Olympics. And then we had to sit out because of COVID. So we didn't get back into it yet. We lost a faculty member and one passed away. And so we had a handful of a jumbled year that we didn't participate last year, but we did take it for the first two years.

Jill James:

So I'm also speaking with a Safety Olympics gold-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Olympian coach. Yes. Olympics coach.

Jill James:

Yeah, Olympian coach, gold medal-winning Olympian coach.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah. No. Just kidding. No, the kids love it. They get to see everybody. And it's right up ASSP's alley by saying, "We do networking, professional growth." And all these kids get together and the faculty just sit there and watch TV. And all these kids put all these programs together and it's just great to see the interaction with that. And the colleges and universities that host them.

Jill James:

How many students kind of ballpark-ish participate?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Oh, geez, I don't know. I think each school got to take a team of six, I believe it was. I don't remember [inaudible 01:01:24] about six or eight students we all take. And there's maybe 50 students all together with the universities and a couple... Faculty, of course, all go along. And it's just been a great... And we have career day where we offer a bunch of people, sponsors come in like Smithfield, who will sponsor us, a part of it. And they'll come in and they'll have a table and have the internships and job availabilities and information about the companies. So it also, it's career day for the kids too.

Jill James:

Oh my gosh. That's beautiful. I love it. I love it. That's so fun. If you have any links for our show note about that and your program at UCO, we'll be happy to put those in the show notes for the podcast.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Okay. I'll get them out to you. Yeah. The Safety Olympics, I'll give you the person who's taken it on. She does a fantastic job.

Jill James:

Yeah, that's fantastic. I have never heard of Safety Olympics. When I was interned with the Department of Transportation a bazillion years ago, they ran something called a Snow Plow Rodeo.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yeah.

Jill James:

I am from Minnesota, and every year the DOT always has a Snow Plow Rodeo at the beginning of the year to teach the skills, test the skills, remind the drivers of their safety skills as they're heading out into the winter.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Yes. And then the electrical workers have the... well, they call it the Lineman's Rodeo, they used to call it, to where they compete nationally. Line crews would compete nationally. So yeah, they have that among workforce. So we have it among college members now.

Jill James:

That's beautiful. It's beautiful. What a great idea. What a great idea. Jan, before we close our time out today, any closing thoughts that you'd like to share with the audience and the profession?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I would like to see more women get into it. Currently, we're running it around 6% of enrollment are women. And I would like to see more women get involved, especially, since we're coming into a proactive stage in the profession. I think women bring an aspect to safety that is beneficial to the profession.

Jill James:

Absolutely. And how do we do that?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

I don't know. I don't know. If I get that one, then I can retire and get a grant. But the profession doesn't need us. I don't chew, nor do I spit, but they don't need all of the women from the field coming in to be professionals. I want to know how to get people interested in safety, period. Not only the women, I'd like to see more women, but I certainly would like to see a greater influx of... One of my cohorts, one of my professors that I teach with says, "We need to put it on TV." We have a CSI program here at the university that since the TV shows come in, our enrollments have increased. But my bigger question, and I hope any of your listeners are out there, is how do we touch base with these emerging adults to get them into the program?

Jill James:

Yeah, that's right. And what can the call to action be for those of us who are already in it?

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Right. The jobs are there. The jobs are there.

Jill James:

To be tapping people. And certainly we've got to work on our own legacy and backfilling for ourselves, for those of us who've been in it a while. Yeah. Yeah. Jan, thank you.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

You're welcome.

Jill James:

Thank you. This has been so much fun and informative. And I have a feeling that our listening audience are going to be searching you out. So pay attention to your LinkedIn account, I have a feeling-

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

My LinkedIn account. Okay.

Jill James:

I have a feeling a few people will be looking for you.

Dr. Jan Handwerk:

Thank you for having me. This has been delightful.

Jill James:

Yeah, same. And thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution toward the common good. May our employees and those we influence know that our profession cares deeply about human well-being, which is the core of our practice. If you aren't subscribed and want to hear past and future episodes, you can subscribe on iTunes, the Apple Podcasts app or any other podcast player you'd like. Or if you prefer, you can read the transcript and listen at HSI.com. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes, it really helps us connect the show with more and more safety professionals like Jan and I. Special thanks to Emily Gould, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.