photo credit Rick Brenner

photo credit Rick Brenner

The International Consumer Product Health and Safety Organization (ICPHSO) just concluded its one-day Southeast Regional Product Safety Training Workshop in Atlanta, Georgia, hosted by The Home Depot.  Over 125 attendees participated in the training workshop.

As president of ICPHSO, I welcomed everyone and then we got down to business – learning together to improve product safety.

Panels included compliance programs, hazard analysis, safety training and product design.

Chairman Elliot Kaye of the US Consumer Product Safety and Commissioner Joe Mohorovic participated in a Q&A session after lunch talking about civil penalties, priorities of the agency and working together with industry.

I moderated a closing panel on Innovating to Spur Safety, which provided some inspiring updates on designing and innovating for safety.  Jonathan Midgett of CPSC on the Chairman’s Challenge – -a challenge to solve long-standing safety problems. Lee Sowell of TTI North America spoke of how his company is taking action on one of the challenges, to design a low CO emission portable generator.  Jim Budd, Chair of the School of Industrial Design at Georgia Tech talked about their engagement of students in emerging technology.  Shubber Ali, Co-CEO and founder of Centriq introduced the firm’s home app and demonstrated how it can be used to alert homeowners – or any user – to recalls as well as produce data that might help identify potential product hazards.

ICPHSO holds three training conferences each year.  The next will be an international conference in Brussels, Belgium in November. See pictures (photo credit Rick Brenner) from the training and learn more about ICPHSO on the website.