New OH&S Publisher Settling In
Publisher Karen Cavallo wears two hats at 1105 Media Inc. She is also group publisher of the Home Medical Equipment Group.
Karen Cavallo, the new publisher of OH&S magazine, brings to the job 28 years of business-to-business publishing experience, including 12 years when she worked in New York City. "I just don't think there's any better education because it's very fast-paced in New York. Just cutting my teeth in B2B in New York -- and I worked in the commercial real estate industry -- it was just a really great place to learn because you really saw everything there," she said.
Cavallo wears two hats at 1105 Media Inc. She is also group publisher of the Home Medical Equipment Group, which includes HME Business and Mobility Management magazines and The Mobility Project, a new website for users of wheelchairs and other assistive technologies for mobility. Like occupational safety and health, HME is a large and highly regulated industry. She said this makes the two markets quite similar.
"Having the governmental body be a part of the regulations, it really affects not only what goes on, but also how the products are made and distributed. I think that's the common thread between them," Cavallo said. "There's an element of patience that you have to have on both sides of this; you have to think years ahead because things may take that long." In addition, she said, end users' very lives depend on many of the products in both of these industries -– products such as fall harnesses, respirators, oxygen-generating equipment, and wheelchairs.
Cavallo's introduction to the EH&S industry was attending the 2012 National Safety Congress & Expo in Orlando, Fla. Her travels this year will take her to ISEA's Executive Summit next month in Dana Point, Calif.; AIHce 2013 (May 20-22, Montreal); ASSE's Safety 2013 (June 24-26, Las Vegas); and the 2013 NSC (Sept. 30-Oct. 2, Chicago), plus a full slate of HME industry events. She said these conferences are great networking opportunities for the people in both industries -- manufacturers, distributors, professionals, end users, and regulators alike.
Asked what she hopes to accomplish during her initial year as OH&S publisher, Cavallo replied, "I think the one word I would say is education: to just make sure that our offerings, whether in print or online, are very forward-thinking and very education-intensive. In fact, I do have a mission to expand our online offerings to meet those educational needs in the marketplace. I would offer up the two Supercasts that we're devoting to how to comply with these OSHA standards, particularly the ones that have the most violations," she said. "That's what I would cite as an example."
The Supercasts -– three webinars in a single day devoted to topics on OSHA's FY2012 list of most-cited standards -- will take place April 10 and Sept. 12, 2013. The April 10 webinar topics are fall protection, machine guarding/lockout, and Hazard Communication.