Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities (TWU) Sector Program

Letter from the Manager, TWU Sector Program

January 9, 2012

Dear Friends of TWU;

These pages introduce the work of the NIOSH TWU Sector Program and the NORA TWU Sector Council. I am pleased by the accomplishments and am enthusiastic about the potential of these efforts to improve the health and safety of TWU workers.

For those who have been part of this effort, thank you for your continued support of and commitment to the NORA TWU Sector. We have made steady progress and will continue to do so with our strong partners and stakeholders.

For those who are just learning about this work, please contact one of the leaders below if you do not find the information you are seeking or if you would like to join the effort.

Max Kiefer, MS, CIH
TWU Program Manager and Council Co-Chair

NORA

The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a partnership program to stimulate innovative research and workplace interventions. In combination with other initiatives, the products of NORA are expected to reduce the occurrence of injuries and illnesses at work. NORA recently entered its second decade (2006-2016) embracing the concept that occupational research and translation efforts be oriented around specific industrial groups or sectors.

TWU Sector

The Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities (TWU) Super Sector is one of ten such groupings within NORA. The Transportation Sub-sector covers all modes of transporting passengers and cargo by air, rail, water, road, and pipeline. The Warehousing Sub-sector consists of establishments engaged primarily in the storage of goods. The Utilities Sub-sector covers electric power, natural gas, alternative sources, water, sewage, and other systems.

NIOSH TWU Program

The overall mission of the TWU program is to 'implement a focused program of surveillance, research, and the development of interventions that leads to the mitigation and prevention of work-related injuries, illnesses, and fatalities in this broad industry sector.' The NIOSH TWU program sets priorities for NIOSH work in the sector, monitors NIOSH-funded TWU projects and encourages new NIOSH projects to address program priorities. The program also uses some NIOSH resources to facilitate the work of the NORA TWU Sector Council. The TWU program tracks impacts achieved by NIOSH projects and partner efforts in support of sector goals.

Motor vehicle crashes are the 1st or 2nd leading cause of death in every industry sector, including TWU. NIOSH has established the Center for Motor Vehicle Safety (NCMVS) to coordinate efforts to research, prioritize, and identify interventions across all industries. The TWU program collaborates with the NCMVS to develop interventions and injury prevention strategies for TWU workers who are at highest risk of fatality or injury from motor vehicle crashes.

NORA TWU Sector Council

The NORA TWU Sector Council sets national priorities and facilitates the development of partnerships to improve occupational safety and health in the TWU Sector. The Council is made up of approximately 25 individuals who represent diverse interests from academia, state, federal, and local governments, labor unions, non-profits, and trade associations. The Council is co-led by a NIOSH representative and an individual from outside of NIOSH. The Sector Council also draws on an active group of Corresponding Members who participate in ad hoc working groups to help implement action plans developed for specific priority goals. Because the TWU Sector is so diverse, Corresponding Members are valuable sources of specialized knowledge that may not reside within the Council itself.

The Council has been engaged in a broad range of activities over the past 3-4 years. These activities have included the conceptualization and development of a national strategic agenda, selection of priority goals and the initiation of strategies to implement priority goal-specific action plans. The chart below summarizes the broad scope of these activities.

Organization	Strategic Agenda Development	Agenda Implementation	Ongoing Activities
Apr 2006–Sep 2007	Oct 2007–Jul 2009	Aug 2009–Dec 2009	Jan 2010-
NORA Symposium: Second Decade of NORA launched using a sector-based approach	Mission statement defined; OSH issues refined	Strategic Agenda finalized and posted on NORA webpage	Conduct subsector meetings	Warehousing – Jul 2010 Trucking – Feb 2011 Air – Feb 2012
			Update TWU webpage: post products, outcomes, and impacts	Fall 2011, ongoing
Town Hall meetings; Key occupational safety and health (OSH) issues defined	Strategic goal work groups identified; 'Draft' agenda and research goals prepared as strategic, intermediate, and activity-output goals	Priority goals developed for multiple sub-sectors	Ensure Strategic Agenda accurately reflects achievable goals	Ongoing
			Monitor TWU goal-related work of NIOSH and partner organizations	Ongoing
Potential partners identified	Public comment and partner input received	"Action plans" initiated for selected focus areas	Facilitate progress on current action plans; encourage new ones	Ongoing
			Solicit new partners	Ongoing
			Outreach through conference participation	Ongoing

Sector Council and Program Leadership Information

Max Kiefer, MS, CIH
TWU Sector Program Manager and Council Co-chair
CDC/NIOSH – Director, Western States Office

MKiefer@cdc.gov, (303) 236-5944

Mr. Kiefer is the Director of the Western States Office of the CDC/NIOSH. Max began with CDC/NIOSH in 1991 as an industrial hygienist conducting health hazard evaluations in the Atlanta Field Office and in 1997 he became the manager of the NIOSH Atlanta Field Office. He also served as the NIOSH Associate Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response from 2004 -2006. Max has a BS in Environmental Health/Microbiology from the University of Georgia (1982) and a MS in Industrial Hygiene from Colorado State University (1984), and is an ABIH certified industrial hygienist (1987). Max has conducted comprehensive industrial hygiene assessments in all industrial sectors involving chemical, biological, and physical hazards. These have included designing and implementing environmental sampling strategies, and providing technical advice and assistance on a wide range of industrial hygiene matters to employers, employees, and the occupational safety and health community. Prior to coming to NIOSH, Max worked in private industry with Intel Corporation (1985-1990) and International Paper Corporation (1991) as a site and corporate industrial hygienist.

In November, 2008, Max was given the responsibility for managing the NIOSH Transportation, Warehousing, and Utilities Sector Program.

Max's professional interests include infectious agent sampling methodologies and risk assessment, respiratory protection, risk communication, and pesticide safety and health.

Eric Wood, MD, MPH
TWU Sector Council Co-chair
Associate Director, Occupational Medicine Residency Program, Clinical Instructor
Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine
University of Utah

Eric.wood@hsc.utah.edu , (801) 581-7780

Eric Wood, MD, MPH is Residency Program Director and Assistant Professor at the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health (RMCOEH) at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is a graduate of the University of Utah School of Medicine, and he completed his Masters of Public Health (Industrial Hygiene) at the University of Hawaii. He performed residency training in Family Medicine at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Utah. He is Board Certified in Preventive Medicine (Occupational and Environmental Medicine) and Family Medicine. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Utah he worked as an attending physician for Intermountain Healthcare, and as a professional industrial hygienist for both private consulting, and for Utah OSHA.

Dr. Wood is actively involved as a researcher on two large scale prospective cohort studies investigating causes of musculoskeletal disorders. He was appointed as the inaugural medical fellow for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and is performing research on health concerns of truck drivers. His clinical interests include occupational injury and illness management and prevention, and occupational and environmental exposure assessment and evaluation. Dr. Wood teaches several courses in the RMCOEH Occupational Health Curriculum, and he mentors occupational medicine residents and graduate students.

Jim Helmkamp, MS, PhD
TWU Sector Program Coordinator
CDC/NIOSH – Senior Epidemiologist, Western States Office

JHelmkamp@cdc.gov, (303) 236-5943

Dr. Helmkamp joined NIOSH in May 2009 as a Senior Epidemiologist at the Western States Office in Denver, CO, and additional duties as the Coordinator for the NIOSH TWU Program in Aug 2009. Prior to this he was the Director of the West Virginia University Injury Control Research Center and a Professor of Research Epidemiology in the Department of Community Medicine. Jim holds a BS in Biology from the University of South Carolina, an MS in Environmental Health from Tulane University, and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh. Before beginning his academic career in 1997, he retired from the U.S. Navy after 25 years of active service – the last four of which were spent at the NIOSH Division of Safety Research through a Department of Defense/Department of the Navy special Fellowship.

Dr. Helmkamp He has made over 75 oral and poster presentations at state, national, and international conferences and symposia, and has authored or co-authored over 70 articles in peer-review journals. Dr. Helmkamp is a Fellow in the American College of Epidemiology. He received the 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health.

Jennifer E. Lincoln, BSF, MSSM
TWU Sector Program Assistant Coordinator
CDC/NIOSH – Division of Safety Research

JELincoln@cdc.gov, (304) 285-6185

Ms. Lincoln has been with NIOSH since 2003, as a Health Scientist in the Division of Safety Research (DSR) in Morgantown, WV. She represents NIOSH on the Transportation Research Board Committees on Railroad Operational Safety and the Task Force on Marine Safety and Human Factors. She is also an assistant project officer for the construction research project "Evaluating Highway Work Zone Interventions" and is part of the research team for the "Truck Driver Injury and Health Survey."

Ms. Lincoln has a Masters Degree in occupational safety and health and is interested in the NORA injury-related goal topics related to motor vehicle, struck-by, and falls. She also has an interest in human factors, fatigue, training, and safety culture. One cross-cutting interest is partnerships with other groups to identify best practices in the industry and promote these practices to make the workplace safer and healthier.