Your Keynote Speaker Card Will Be Full this Year
It's been seven months since the retirement of NSC President and CEO Alan McMillan and new NSC President and CEO Janet Froetscher is set to pick up the mantle at this year's Congress and Expo. On Monday, Sept. 22, Froetscher and former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett will keynote the Opening Session from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.
During this session, Bennett, who was dubbed the "Drug Czar" during the George H. Bush administration and is now a radio host and television commentator, will offer his perspective on the 2008 presidential election and on prescription drug overdoses that are now sweeping the nation.
A new Executive Forum will follow from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., titled "Transforming Vision to Reality," in which NSC Chairman Joseph J. Ucciferro, Ph.D., will be joined by a panel of senior executives to offer insights into the challenges and keys to success for establishing safety cultures within their organizations. The panel will include: Abdulkarim Al-Sayed, Bahrain Petroleum Co.; Sherri K. Stuewer, Exxon Mobil Corp.; and Kent D. McElhattan, Ph.D, Industrial Scientific Corp.
From 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., the day's presenters will join for an Occupational Keynote, titled "The Future of OSHA," that will further expand on one of the Opening Session's topics as presenters share their own alternate forecasts for the future of occupational safety and the implications the 2008 presidential election will have both domestically and internationally.
Returning to the event this year to present the Motivational Keynote, titled "The Human Side of Injury Prevention," on Tuesday, Sept. 23, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., are Scott Geller, Ph.D., senior partner at Safety Performance Solutions, and Charlie Morecraft, president of Phoenix Safety Management.
Sharing the stage with Geller at last year's conference, Morecraft ensured his message hit home as he pulled back his sleeves and held up his arms to reveal some of the scars left from the burns that he suffered on more than half of his body from an industrial explosion in 1980 when he was an employee for Exxon Corp.
Geller, a professor at Virginia Tech, conveyed his own personal message of struggle as he recalled the morning of April 16, 2007, when he was driving to work and received a call telling him to turn around and go home because a killer was on campus.
Also on Tuesday, Gary Catapano, senior vice-president, Safety, First Student Inc., will present the Safety Communities America Keynote, titled "Safety Communities: A Significant Corporate Value," from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. He will be joined by Gail Dever, Director, External Communications Public Affairs, CN, a leader in North American rail industry, and R. Craig Lefebvre, Ph.D., adjunct professor of Prevention and Community Health, The George Washington University School of Public Health and Human Services.
On Wednesday, Gary Heil, author and founder of the Center for Innovation Leadership, will wrap up things with his presentation of the Leadership Keynote from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.