The expo will take place inside the George R. Brown Convention Center, which opened on the east side of downtown Houston on Sept. 26, 1987. (Julie Soefer Photography)

Get Ready for the Year's Biggest Trade Show

Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center is the site for this year's NSC Congress & Expo.

The National Safety Council's 2018 Congress & Expo is taking place Oct. 20-26 in Houston, a major city that was dealing with an unprecedented disaster, Hurricane Harvey and its floods, only a little more than one year ago. The storm caused $125 billion in damage, according to the National Hurricane Center, and killed 36 people in the Houston metropolitan area alone.

In August 2018, voters in Harris County, the county in which Houston is located, overwhelmingly passed a $2.5 billion Harris County Flood Control District bond proposal to fund hundreds of flood mitigation projects countywide. The vote was a victory for Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county's chief executive, who had called it "the most important local election in my lifetime."

Emmett is scheduled to present the Oct. 24 Occupational Keynote at the Congress. His keynote, titled "Lessons Learned After a Major Natural Disaster, Hurricane Harvey," will begin at 8 a.m. It is likely to be one of the best-attended highlights of the Congress & Expo for attendees.

Educational and Expo Highlights
Boasting top-notch educational and networking opportunities, the Congress also features by far the largest trade show floor among the annual U.S. safety conferences. Nearly 1,100 exhibitors were listed in the council's online Congress & Expo exhibitor list by late August.

The expo will take place inside the George R. Brown Convention Center, which opened on the east side of downtown Houston on Sept. 26, 1987. Expo highlights this year include a New Product Showcase and seven Learning Lab Sessions. The Learning Labs will include the highly popular, annual "OSHA's Top 10 Violations" talk by OSHA Directorate of Enforcement Programs Deputy Director Patrick Kapust (10:30-11 a.m., Oct. 23); "The Future of Electrical Safety: Beyond OSHA and NFPA 70E Compliance" by e-Hazard's Hugh Hoagland (3-3:45 p.m., Oct. 22); and a talk titled "The Future of Hand Protection: Eliminating Cuts and Impact Injuries to the Human Hand" (11 a.m.-noon, Oct. 23).

Expo Hours
Expo hours at this year's Congress are:

  • Monday, Oct. 22—9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Tuesday, Oct. 23—9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
  • Wednesday, Oct. 24—9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Future NSC Dates
The Congress & Expo will take place more than a month earlier when it kicks off in San Diego next year, at the San Diego Convention Center (Congress Sept. 7-13, expo Sept. 9-11).

The 2020 Congress & Expo is set for October in Indianapolis, its location for the second time in four years (Indianapolis Convention Center; Congress Oct. 3-9, expo Oct. 5-7).

This article originally appeared in the October 2018 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.

About the Author

Jerry Laws is Editor of Occupational Health & Safety magazine, which is owned by 1105 Media Inc.

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