Expired April Chapter Meeting – A Fall Protection Paradigm Shift

You’re invited to our April chapter meeting, with Southern NV member Russell Duren presenting on the paradigm shift safety professionals can adopt to help reverse America’s fall fatality trend.

Regardless of where fall protection annually ranks on any citation list, too many Americans don’t go home to their loved ones due to inadequate management of work-at-height hazards. Safety professionals must shift their engagement efforts on this hazard to prioritize prevention through design, exceed regulatory minimums, and maximize system capacity in PPE-based control measures whenever they’re used.

This meeting is approved for 0.2 CEUs.

Learning Objectives

• Attendees will be able to contrast global fall fatality rates against American rates as a starting point in advocating for an all-stakeholder paradigm shift in controlling work-at-height hazards.
• Attendees will be able to question fall protection control scenarios where PPE has been unnecessarily selected, toward advocating a Hierarchy of Controls approach that increases the worksite’s safe work capacity.
• Attendees will apply ANSI Z359.2 principles and a Uses-Limitations-Restrictions model to maximize the effectiveness of fall protection controls when a harness-based system has been deemed necessary.

You can read more about the context for this presentation in ASSP’s October 2023 edition of Professional Safety (free online viewing of archived issues for Society members logged into their account).

Presenter Bio:

Russell Duren, ASP, grew up climbing trees, fences, rocks, and anything else with a vertical profile. He brings his love of heights into his work as a Lead Safety Specialist with PGM Safety Services, headquartered in Carson City, Nevada. A 2005 graduate of Baylor University’s School of Education, Russell now leads a statewide team of safety specialists helping employers in Nevada’s largest worker’s compensation self-insured groups more effectively manage their occupational safety and health hazards. Russell serves as the Area A Director for Region 2 and enjoys contributing to Southern Nevada Chapter projects. He also volunteers with Boy Scouts of America. Russell’s family enjoys camping and traveling, having a goal to get the kids to all 50 states before high school graduation. Russell and his family have called Las Vegas home since 2008.

As with all our technical meetings, this meeting will be online-only. Stay tuned on our Events page for the upcoming mixers and site tours that provide in-person gathering opportunities.

Technical meetings are always open to non-members as well as members.

Attendees can receive the join link for our Google Meet room by completing the free Virtual Attendance registration below (which helps us with Society-required program reporting). However, members will also receive the same link in their monthly email newsletters. Registration is not required, but is appreciated.

To save the date, download the *.ics Outlook file from the pushpin icon above, and you’ll notice the Location field contains the Google Meet link.