Industry Leaders From 3M, Encon, Honeywell, and OSHA Honored
(Arlington, Virginia – December 11, 2023) The International Safety Equipment Association (ISEA) recognized three members plus a vital federal partner for their valuable contributions to ISEA’s mission and to the safety equipment industry, at the Association’s annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia, December 4, 2023.
Rising Safety Star Award
Recipient: Jessica Tredinnick (3M)
- About the Award: The Rising Safety Star Award was created this year to recognize members who have more recently begun engaging with ISEA, and who have in a relatively short time had an outsize impact on the Association and its mission.
- Recipient Spotlight: As the inaugural recipient of this award, Tredinnick (who has been involved with ISEA for about two years) has rapidly become engaged in multiple product groups, offering her expertise and valuable input when asked for industry feedback on ISEA initiatives and deliverables. She now chairs the Respiratory Product Group and is an active member of both the Marketing and Standards Planning & Development Committee. She also recently led a working group to help determine how ISEA will generate and vet ideas for new product standards.
Ryan-Willson Award
Recipients: Jim Johnson (Encon) and Drew Saunders (Honeywell)
- About the Award: This award is named after two of ISEA’s founders, original pioneers of the safety equipment industry, to honor ISEA leaders of today. The award celebrates those who have provided their expertise not only to support ISEA, but also to advance the safety industry and help keep workers safer, especially through the important work of ISEA’s product groups.
- Recipient Spotlight: Both of this year’s recipients have been in the industry for decades and active with ISEA for many years.
- Jim Johnson recently celebrated his 30th year at Encon and has been a long-time member of the Emergency Eyewash and Shower product group. He served on ISEA’s Board of Trustees for three years, including stints as both chair and vice chair. And when not in those roles he has remained among that product group’s most active and contributing members, having been instrumental in drafting and publishing several updates to the eyewash and shower standard.
- Drew Saunders has been dedicated to keeping workers safe through improved gas detection technology throughout his career. When Honeywell first joined ISEA, through a merger with North Safety, he jumped right in, and ISEA has benefited from his organizational leadership and dedication ever since. He spear-headed an effort to create a gas detection calibration statement. He also conceived and led the development of the instruments group’s Fixed-Site Gas Detection Selection and Use Guide. Now, the group is working on a portable gas detection selection and use guide.
Robert Hurley Award
Recipient: Andy Levinson (OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance)
- About the Award: The Robert B. Hurley Distinguished Service Award is presented each year to an individual whose efforts have advanced and promoted workplace safety and health across the board, making significant and lasting contributions to the safety of workers.
- Recipient Spotlight: Andy Levinson has spent his career in worker safety. In fact, he began as a safety and health professional at a Budweiser facility in Georgia and held significant safety roles at the International Association of Fire Fighters. But it’s his last 20 years at OSHA — one of ISEA’s top federal partners — where he has become a respected colleague and friend to safety equipment industry professionals. He was very helpful to the safety equipment industry as companies scrambled to produce pandemic PPE, and today he is helping to propel a conceptual and cultural shift in thinking about worker safety.
- In 2018, he conceived and executed OSHA’s Safe-and-Sound campaign, an effort that asks employers to develop a health and safety program at their workplaces, which is one of OSHA’s top annual campaigns.
- And this summer, under his thought-leadership and program execution, OSHA launched its Safety as a Core Value effort — a campaign that three short months later was hailed by OSHA Assistant Secretary Doug Parker in testimony before Congress.
- He is currently working on standards for heat stress, emergency preparedness, tree care, infectious disease, and many more.
