Counting Down to NSC 2016

The pre-conference program identifies 10 technical sessions as "hot topics" for this year—and they look very promising.

• By Jerry Laws
• Sep 01, 2016

There's always something new under the sun at the National Safety Congress & Expo, counter to the bromide that holds otherwise. As in Terry Bradshaw subbing in as keynote speaker during the Oct. 17 opening session, sharing a stage with National Safety Council President & CEO Deborah A.P. Hersman. Or the pre-conference program helpfully identifying 10 technical sessions as "hot topics" for this year—and, I agree, they look very promising:

• Legally Effective Incident Investigations
• Workplace Violence Planning and Management
• The Future of Safety: A Hawk-Eye View of What's on the Safety and Health Horizon
• 2015 NFPA 70E: Significant Changes
• Occupational Fatigue
• How Not to Count Sheep at Work
• The Other Side of the Coin: Examining the Financial Case for Safety
• Don't Let Your Record Go Up in Smoke: Legally Addressing Marijuana in Your Workplace
• The Impact and Implications of NFPA 652—NFPA's Newest Combustible Dust Standard
• GHS: The Top 10 Reasons Employers Are Out of Compliance

Or six Journey to Safety Excellence sessions, nine NSC Learning Lab Sessions on the expo floor, and an Oct. 19 technical tour beginning at 9 a.m. behind the scenes of the Anaheim Convention Center's safety and sustainability programs (including the largest roof-mounted solar array on a municipally owned convention center in North America, according to the advance program). This year's NSC is taking place inside that very convention center, a facility that is located across Katella Avenue from the Disneyland complex. The convention center is now undergoing its seventh expansion, with 200,000 square feet of space being added.

Also taking place the morning of Oct. 19 is the conference's other technical tour of the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center. Known as ARTIC, it is a transit hub located next to Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Separate fees and pre-registration were required for both technical tours and some of the professional development seminars.

The NSC conference is a premier networking event that offers the largest expo among the U.S. annual safety shows.

Educational Highlights
Beyond the opening session, motivational and occupational keynotes (Oct. 18), the leadership keynote (Oct. 19), and the "hot topics" sessions, there are professional development seminars before and after the expo days, as well, plus 45-minute Learning Lab Sessions at booth 1464 on the expo floor, the Executive Forum (Oct. 17), OSHA’s Top Ten presentation (Oct. 18), the "Solutions from ISEA Experts" presentation about high-visibility and hand protection standards (Oct. 18), and a full slate of technical sessions Oct. 17-19.

Those technical sessions cover topics ranging from fleet safety, construction, and workplace violence to training, machine guarding, behavior-based safety, fall protection, safety leadership, electrical safety, OSHA regulatory initiatives, hazmat, health care, environmental protection, fatigue, ergonomics, aging workforce issues, combustible dust, GHS, confined spaces, and more.

Expo Highlights and Convention Center Expansion
According to Visit Anaheim, this year's NSC expo is using halls A-D of the convention center. Halls C and D are the largest halls in the center, and A-D combined can accommodate 3,403 booths, according to the bureau.

Expo hours:

• 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m., Monday, Oct. 17
• 9:30 a.m. – 4 p.m., Oct. 18
• 9:30 a.m. – 1 p.m., Oct. 19

The convention center's expansion means that, weekdays and some Saturdays from June 29 to Dec. 31, 2016, construction activity may briefly interrupt traffic flow on eastbound and westbound Katella Avenue between West Street and Hotel Way as steel delivery trucks access the expansion work site.

Phase One of the project, scheduled to be completed in September 2016, features 600 parking spaces and a pedestrian bridge concourse connecting the parking structure to existing facilities. Anaheim Convention Center North is scheduled to open in September 2017 and will include the added 200,000 square feet of exhibit and meeting space and a two-phase parking structure with 1,350 spaces.

This article originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.