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President's Letter - July 2009

I want to thank all of our members, visitors, and invited guests for endorsing me as the President of the ASSE South Florida Chapter for the 2009 – 2010 fiscal year. When I was first elected as Chapter Treasurer four years ago, I was quite apprehensive. But with the support I received from our members and former officers, I was able to perform my duties effortlessly and without interruption to the Chapter’s activities. All of our members need to understand that I will need their total support to successfully achieve the goals of the Chapter. I hope many more of you will consider stepping up your support of the Chapter and adding this important aspect to your resume.

I want to thank our outgoing President, Karen Metz, for her continuing support of the Chapter. Due to personal reasons, Karen was unable to fulfill her entire year of service. But she knew that the rest of us were there to pick up the pieces, and welcome her back into the fold when she was ready. “Karen, we got your back!” I would love to see Karen work her way back to President in the future as her continual support of the Chapter is greatly appreciated.

I also want to thank Tracy Linhart for his tireless support. We are very fortunate to have the Region 4 Area Director as one of our own. Tracy has been a member for over 15 years, and all of us appreciate his experience and knowledge of the ASSE, as well as his beaming personality and leadership skills in keeping our meetings on track. Thank you, Tracy, for watching MY back.

We have several new officers I’d like to introduce:

Lou Tkacz, Safety Director for Advanced Roofing, is now the President-Elect, and Membership Chair.
Fernando Gonzalez, with Gon-Safe safety consulting, is the Chapter Secretary.
Alex Scott, Risk Consultant for Wells Fargo, is the Chapter Treasurer.
Wendy Ash is the Chapter Newsletter Editor.

All of us can be contacted from the Chapter website: http://southflorida.asse.org.

This year is going to be difficult for many of us while we all continue to deal with the economic crisis our country is experiencing. Working for an electrical contractor, I can tell you the construction industry has been hit especially hard. With what few contracts are available, due to the lack of bank funding; and with the extremely lower profit margins, because of highly competitive bidding; we have to be much more diligent in preventing injuries and affecting our ratings. More and more General Contractors are scrutinizing the EMR, IR, and DART ratings of their subcontractors before qualifying them to bid work. This puts a greater burden on us as Safety Professionals to minimize injuries and their costs.

It is also much more necessary to protect the lowered profit margins of our employers, by reducing injury costs, and thereby, protecting jobs!

I have used a lot of the information and training materials provided at our meetings to increase safety knowledge and awareness on all of our jobs. Please attend the monthly meetings and I am sure you will learn something useful, and I look forward to learning from YOU!

Mike Cooper
President, South Florida Chapter
American Society of Safety Engineers

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President's Letter - July 2009