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Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310 (2013)

Chapter: Study Committee Biographical Information

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
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Study Committee Biographical Information

Vice Admiral James C. Card, Chair, is a consultant to the maritime community. He has 42 years of maritime safety, security, and environmental protection experience in the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and is a member of the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) Marine Board. He chaired a National Research Council (NRC) planning committee on offshore wind energy projects. He was the USCG Vice Commandant from July 24, 1998, until his retirement on July 1, 2000. He served as Commander, Coast Guard Pacific Area, Eleventh Coast Guard District, U.S. Maritime Defense Zone Pacific, and as Regional Emergency Transportation Coordinator from 1997 to 1998. He was Assistant Commandant for Marine Safety and Environmental Protection at Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, D.C., from 1994 to 1997 and was Commander of the Eighth Coast Guard District in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1992 to 1994. As Pacific Area Commander, he directed Coast Guard operations from the West Coast to the Far East and from the North Pole to the Antarctic in support of the strategic goals of safety, protection of natural resources, mobility, maritime security, and national defense. Adm. Card has served as Chief of Staff, Thirteenth Coast Guard District, in Seattle, Washington; Chief of Operations for the Eleventh Coast Guard District in Long Beach, California; and Commanding Officer of Marine Safety Office, Group Los Angeles–Long Beach, California. He was also Commanding Officer of Marine Safety Office St. Louis, Missouri, and has had tours at Coast Guard Headquarters as Chief, Merchant Vessel Inspection and Documentation Division, and Chief, Ship Design Branch, in the Marine Technical and Hazardous Materials Division. He is a 1964 graduate of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and has earned two master’s degrees, one

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×

in naval architecture and one in mechanical engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Thomas J. Lentz is a lead health scientist and research occupational hygienist and Chief of the Document Development Branch with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He conducts research to evaluate occupational and environmental hazards. His projects and interests include investigation of small business industries and their hazards, assessment of safety hazards in construction trades, and evaluation of toxicology and epidemiology data on chemical and physical agents to determine health risks and appropriate prevention strategies. Dr. Lentz is particularly interested in studying how design, planning, and control engineering can be used in addressing safety and health challenges in the work environment. Major duties include developing informational materials and guidance for other agencies, industry, labor groups, and the public. He formerly served as Policy Response Coordinator for the institute. Dr. Lentz earned a BA in biology–philosophy from Wittenberg University (1989), an MPH in environmental health sciences–health policy from Yale University (1991), and a PhD in environmental health and industrial hygiene from the University of Cincinnati (1997).

Gerald E. Miller, with G. E. Miller and Associates, is the author of the original American Society for Testing and Materials F1166 Standard Practice for Human Engineering Design for Marine Systems, Equipment, and Facilities, which was published in 1988, and is the principal author of the 2007 revision. He has been employed for 50 years as a human factors engineer and has 32 years of experience in integrating human factors engineering into the design of ships and offshore oil and gas facilities. He is a member of TRB’s Marine Safety and Human Factors Committee. He has authored more than 70 papers, reports, and articles on the methods and value of integrating human factors engineering into the design of military and commercial ships and offshore structures. He has been a human factors and ergonomics (HFE) consultant to ABS since 1997 and was the technical author of its first ergonomics ship design guideline (Guidance Notes on the Application of Ergonomics to Marine Systems) in

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×

1998. He was a subject matter expert consultant for the expanded and updated version of that document reissued in 2003. He also contributed to three ABS ergonomically based habitability design standards, released in 2003, covering crew spaces for all types of ships, passenger accommodations on cruise ships, and crew accommodations on offshore facilities. Mr. Miller was a consultant to ABS during the preparation of its ergonomics design guideline for the design of ship bridges, which was released in 2004, and served as the HFE specialist on an ABS project to clarify and quantify the existing HFE requirements contained in the ABS Steel Vessel Rules. Mr. Miller has written or contributed to five major publications that describe how to integrate HFE into the design of offshore rigs, platforms, and ships. Since 1990, he has served as an HFE consultant to more than a dozen offshore exploration and production companies, offshore drilling companies, and marine engineering and design companies in the Gulf of Mexico and internationally during the design of approximately 15 oil and gas rigs and platforms and offshore supply vessels. Mr. Miller served as an HFE consultant to the U.S. Coast Guard periodically from 1990 through 2001, including a 5-year stint as a visiting HFE instructor at its training center in Yorktown, Virginia. He has prepared more than a dozen PowerPoint-based HFE training packages and has personally provided HFE training to more than 3,500 maritime engineers, designers, computer-aided design operators, and inspectors in the United States and overseas. Mr. Miller holds a BS in civil engineering and an MA in clinical and experimental psychology and is a certified professional ergonomist.

Edmond J. Moran, Jr., is a member of senior management of Moran Towing Corporation and is a member of TRB’s Marine Board. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and has served in the United States Navy. Mr. Moran has worked in the maritime industry for more than 40 years and has significant experience with maritime-oriented safety management systems. His background includes managing the safety of workers operating on offshore vessels and the safe and reliable delivery of personnel and equipment to and from offshore job sites, as well as the implications of vessel design and operation along with personal safety equipment. He is familiar with wind farm service vessels and has visited wind farm operators, developers, and service vessel operators in Europe and America to improve understanding of the industry.

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×

Jakob Nielsen is Head of Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Offshore at Siemens Energy Transmission. Previously, he served as Head of EHS Offshore, New Markets, and Technology for Siemens Wind Power, where he led a global team whose focus was on EHS in the early stages of offshore projects. He identified and mitigated risk with regard to new markets and new offshore projects. In addition, Mr. Nielsen was the Head of EHS Offshore at Siemens Wind Power and was responsible for direct and functional management of EHS on all offshore wind projects worldwide. While he was the Global Health, Safety, and the Environment (HSE) Manager, he directed HSE work on a global level for all plants, production sites, and research and development test sites, including supplier control.

James W. Platner is Associate Director of the Center for Construction Research and Training, formerly known as the Center to Protect Workers’ Rights, which is the research and training institute of the Building and Construction Trades Department, American Federation of Labor– Congress of Industrial Organizations. He has a BS in biophysics from Johns Hopkins University, an MS in radiation biology, and a PhD in toxicology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. He is a Certified Industrial Hygienist and a Fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association. He is a member of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) A10 American National Standards Committee on Safety in Construction and Demolition Operations and the ANSI Z10 American National Standards Committee on Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems. He is a coprincipal investigator of the NIOSH National Construction Research Center and is a member of the NIOSH Board of Scientific Counselors.

Jennifer L. Schneider is a Professor and Russell C. McCarthy Endowed Chair in the Civil Engineering Technology, Environmental Management, and Safety Department, College of Applied Science and Technology, at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She has been Director of EHS for ITT/Goulds Fluid Division; Regional Safety Supervisor, Mobil Chemical Corporation; and Engineer–Industrial Hygiene Specialist, IT Corporation/Eastman Kodak. She received a BA from Roberts Wesleyan College, an MS from the University of Rochester School of Medicine

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×

and Dentistry, and an ScD from the University of Massachusetts College of Engineering. She is a Certified Industrial Hygienist—Comprehensive Practice (Diplomate). Her research interests include critical infrastructure: application of risk analysis and systems theory to determine community-level critical infrastructure, impacts on emergency management systems and target capabilities; exposure assessment: modeling of exposure scenarios (particularly hazardous material emergencies) and requisite response needs; and multidimensional sustainability: analysis of sector-based corporate sustainability-related activities and management systems.

Robert E. Sheppard is a Technical Manager with Energo Engineering, an engineering consulting firm specializing in advanced analysis, integrity management, and risk and reliability, in Houston, Texas. He has more than 20 years of experience in structural engineering with a focus on assessment and repair of offshore structures and structural integrity management. He has extensive experience in planning and implementing offshore inspection activities and in the design and installation of offshore repairs, including working with divers and installation contractors to facilitate their ability to perform work safely offshore both above and below water. Mr. Sheppard was the group leader for safety, operations, and decommissioning in the American Wind Energy Association’s Recommended Practices for Design, Deployment, and Operation of Offshore Wind Turbines in the United States. He has led projects for the former Minerals Management Service to develop guidelines for the inspection of offshore wind turbine facilities, including the substructure, tower, nacelle, and blades. These projects blended the existing operating experience from offshore oil and gas facilities with the unique requirements of wind turbine facilities. He has also recently worked on a TRB study committee addressing the structural integrity of offshore wind turbines. Mr. Sheppard earned a BS in civil engineering from Rice University and an MS in structural engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a registered civil engineer in California and Texas. He has published three papers related to offshore wind facilities.

Michael A. Silverstein is a Clinical Professor of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of Washington School of Public

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×

Health. He recently retired as Assistant Director for Industrial Safety and Health in the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, where he was responsible for the state’s occupational safety and health program for 10 years. Dr. Silverstein spent 2 years as Director of Policy for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Washington, D.C., and 15 years as Assistant Director for the Occupational Health and Safety Department of the United Automobile Workers Union in Detroit, Michigan. Before turning his attention full-time to the prevention of workplace injuries and illnesses, he practiced family medicine in Redwood City, California, and occupational medicine in Detroit. He has an AB from Harvard College, an MPH from the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and an MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. His research interests include occupational health policy, regulatory and legislative policy, ergonomics, safety and health programs and procedures, and workers compensation issues.

Brian Walencik is the Environmental Health and Safety Leader for Renewable Energy at GE Power and Water. He manages a program that develops competency in environmental health and safety for GE professionals and directs an initiative promoting mentoring opportunities between junior employees and senior environmental health and safety leaders. Mr. Walencik has more than 18 years of environmental health and safety experience with GE and has a BS in environmental law and economics from the State University of New York.

David H. Wegman is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Adjunct Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He was founding chair of the Department of Work Environment as well as Dean of the School of Health and Environment from 2003 to 2008. Previously he was a member of the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health and was Division Chair of Occupational and Environmental Health at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health after serving as Occupational Hygiene Physician for the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Industries. He received his BA from Swarthmore College and his MD and MSc from Harvard University. Dr. Wegman’s epidemiologic

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Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
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research includes study of acute and chronic occupational respiratory disease, occupational cancer risk, and occupational musculoskeletal disorders. He has special interest in the study of subjective outcomes as early indicators of health effects and in surveillance of occupational conditions and risks. He was named a National Associate of NRC in 2002 and a member of the NRC Board on Human Systems Integration in 2010. Dr. Wegman has served on or chaired a number of ad hoc committees of the National Academies. Most recently, he chaired the Committees on the Role of Human Factors in Home Health Care and on External Evaluation of the National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Previously, he chaired the NRC–Institute of Medicine Committees on Review of NIOSH Research Programs, the Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers, and the Health and Safety Consequences of Child Labor. He serves on the NRC Committee on Mine Safety: Essential Components of Self-Escape. Dr. Wegman chaired the 1995–1996 Mine Safety and Health Administration Advisory Committee on the Elimination of Pneumoconiosis Among Coal Mine Workers and served on the Boards of Scientific Counselors for NIOSH and for the National Toxicology Program as well as on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board. In 1998 he was awarded a Fulbright Senior Fellowship for the study of health and safety of older workers in Sweden, and in 2006 he was appointed chair of the International Evaluation Group assisting in an analysis of occupational health research in Sweden. He is coeditor of Occupational and Environmental Health: Recognition and Prevention of Disease and Injury, the sixth edition of which was published in 2010.

Page 152
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 152
Page 153
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 153
Page 154
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 154
Page 155
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 155
Page 156
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 156
Page 157
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
Page 157
Page 158
Suggested Citation:"Study Committee Biographical Information." Transportation Research Board. 2013. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18327.
×
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Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms - Special Report 310 Get This Book
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The United States holds a large amount of untapped wind energy, both land-based and offshore. The strongest and most consistent winds are either offshore or in rural areas, far from population centers that could benefit from the electricity produced. As of December 31, 2012, the United States had more than 60,000 megawatts of installed wind capacity—second only to China—all of it from land-based wind farms. Offshore wind development would supply energy to nearby population centers, especially on the East Coast. Yet the United States has no offshore turbines installed; many European nations have developed dozens of offshore wind farms over the past 15 years.

Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which authorized the Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (USDOI) to regulate renewable energy sources on the outer continental shelf (OCS). Initially, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) had responsibility for essential regulations and for implementing this new authority, in addition to regulating oil and gas development. In April 2010, MMS was reorganized (see Chapter 3), and previously coexisting functions were separated: resource development and energy management are now administered by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), and health, safety, and environmental enforcement for offshore oil and gas is now administered by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The regulation of renewable energy is an exception to this organizational structure. USDOI issued its final regulations in 30 CFR 585, which gave BOEM authority to regulate all renewable energy development activities on the OCS. The agency still needed to provide guidance in many areas of offshore wind development, including ensuring the health and safety of offshore wind workers.

In August 2011, USDOI requested that the Marine Board of the National Research Council assess its approach for regulating the health and safety of wind farm workers on the OCS. Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms reviews the following statements of task:

- Identify unique risks to worker health and safety on wind farms, as compared with oil and gas operations on the OCS;

- Identify any gaps or overlaps in jurisdictional authority; and

- Evaluate the adequacy of existing regulations and recommend enhancements to regulations for worker health and safety on OCS wind farms.

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