Southern Nuclear hosts top-rated industrial safety conference

Southern Nuclear featured top industrial safety experts as this year’s host of the 31st Annual Nuclear Industrial Safety & Health Association (NISHA) Conference held in Panama City Beach.

The mission of NISHA is to be the recognized source of expert professionals dedicated to the continuous improvement of industrial safety and health in the commercial nuclear power industry.

Joe Parham, Southern Nuclear’s Fleet Safety and Health manager, has been an active member of NISHA for many years, and in 2015, he was elected by his peers to serve as the association’s chairman.

“I’ve always valued professional associations like NISHA as a resource for continuously learning and fostering benchmarking among professionals,” said Parham.

As chairman, Parham’s priority was to ensure that Southern Nuclear would be recognized as an industry leader in safety performance. He believed one way to achieve this would be for Southern Nuclear host a conference, and he engaged his team to help plan what they hoped would be a top-rated event.

“As the host company, we worked hard to secure an agenda of leading experts to speak on a variety of industrial safety topics,” said Southern Nuclear Fleet Safety Coordinator Randy Glaze. “I was grateful to hear from many participants who said it was the best and most informative conference they had ever attended. That proved our hard work was worth the extra effort.”

Leading industry presenters:

• Ed Foulke, former Assistant Secretary of Labor for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, who spoke on anticipated changes to OSHA and regulatory climate under the new administration.
• Dr. Bob Emery, University of Texas Health Science Center, shared ethical decision-making tools for enhancing organizational safety culture. 
• Hugh Hoagland, owner of e-Hazard and world-renowned expert on electrical arc flash safety, gave an update on electrical safety and led an electrical safety roundtable discussion.

Southern Nuclear presenters:

• Danny Bost, chief nuclear officer, gave the welcome address and talked about the industry’s current business climate, obligation to deliver the nuclear promise, and ongoing industry opportunities to get more consistent.
• Jennifer Buettner, associate general counsel, explained the role of legal in industrial safety investigations. 
• Vincent Williams, engineering innovation and technology project manager, shared innovation at Southern Nuclear. 
• Joe Parham and Jenny Baily, Southern Company Services safety and health director, discussed critical risk management for preventing serious injuries and fatalities.
• Jeff White, Southern Company Services human performance coordinator, shared the event learning process that SNC is piloting in Q4 of 2017.

“Implementing industrial safety programs in the nuclear industry is challenging because we’re not only responsible for ensuring our programs meet the OSHA legal compliance requirements, we must also incorporate ongoing best practices recommended by INPO,” said Parham. “Conferences like this allow safety professionals across the industry to collaborate with each other, regulatory experts and INPO representatives so that our safety programs are consistent and we properly manage risks so that employees go home as safe and healthy as when they walked through the door.”