Presidential Safety Award

The Presidential Safety Award is awarded to individuals or groups that have made significant accomplishment in improving safety at Purdue University. The award is presented at the annual safety chair meeting. The President or his designee will present a plaque to the individual or group in recognition of the safety achievement.

Nominations

Nominations are accepted at any time but must be received by no later than six weeks prior to the annual safety chair meeting to be considered for that year. Nominations will be reviewed by the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) Award Committee with final approval by the Senior Director of EHS.

Criteria and Eligibility

The selection for the Presidential Safety Award will be based on the following criteria:

New or innovative methods for the implementation of safety.
Excellence in safety program implementation.
Demonstrated improvement in a safety program.
Personal leadership in safety.
Consistent safety performance over time.

All faculty, staff, and students are eligible for this award.

Click here for the nomination form.

2024 Presidential Safety Award Winners

Terri Griffin - Terri has been a tremendous support to Operations and Maintenance (O&M) safety, exemplifying the phrase "excellence in action, safety in mind." She has led impactful safety improvements, including establishing a streamlined process for winter slip-resistant boots, facilitating a boot truck on campus and supporting the O&M Toolbox Calendar with new educational content. Terri also coordinates “good catch” submissions, an internal dashboard where O&M staff can report potentially unsafe conditions. Through this, she is able to address potential hazards quickly, organizes safety committees for improved efficiency and helps develop O&M’s safety training curriculum. Her dedication, positivity and wealth of ideas make her an invaluable resource across her department and EHS.

Terri Griffin and Mita Juristyarini.

Terri Griffin, Mita Juristyarini

Casey Peters - Since joining the School of Materials Engineering, Casey has implemented an outstanding safety program, resulting in substantial improvements to workplace safety. His proactive approach to identifying and mitigating hazards has fostered a culture of safety, inspiring others to prioritize it in their daily work. Casey consistently enforces PPE requirements, enhances safety in complex shared labs, promptly addresses fume hood alarms and repairs, takes ownership of the Integrated Safety Plan (ISP) program and encourages new research safety reviews. His commitment and leadership make him a true safety role model in Materials Engineering and beyond.

Casey Peters and Mita Juristyarini.

Casey Peters, Mita Juristyarini

2023 Presidential Safety Award Winners

Professor Kendra Erk, Associate Professor of Materials Engineering - Prof. Kendra Erk has been the Faculty Chair of the School of Materials Engineering Safety Committee since 2018. In this role, Prof. Erk has developed and led the implementation of new safety initiatives in MSE. These initiatives have successfully streamlined the communication of safety issues and best practices within MSE to maintain a constant dialog about safety among all MSE students, faculty, and staff. Specifically, Prof. Erk instituted the first all-school safety survey and townhall event in 2019 as an efficient and effective way to solicit feedback from MSE personnel working in over seven different buildings across Purdue’s West Lafayette campus. Prof. Erk has strengthened the school’s relationship with Purdue EHS in both informal and formal ways, including hosting an EHS-led educational seminar on the lifecycle of hazardous waste (from pick-up to processing to fueling a cement kiln!). Since 2019, Prof. Erk created and has personally authored the bi-monthly MSE Safety & Equipment Newsletter which is sent to all MSE personnel and addresses a wide range of topics from fume hood best practices to COVID vaccination guidance to wintertime safety. She also encourages student- and staff-led safety initiatives including the creation of a safety bulletin board in Armstrong Hall of Engineering (undergraduate students), the new “Chemical Spill Drill” scenario-based training events (graduate students), and the adoption of emergency code words (administrative staff). Lastly, Prof. Erk has overseen the successful execution of the Integrated Safety Plan and Annual Indemnification Process for MSE since 2018, spanning the tenure of three MSE safety technicians.

Prof. Kendra Erk, Eric Butt

Mr. Shane Haselby - Over the past year Shane Haselby has been instrumental in transforming Building Services safety culture, helping their staff become more comfortable sharing issues and more collaborative in working together to make effective corrections.

Shane accomplished this through:

Being a consistent voice across all shifts and areas – bridging the gaps between groups
Leading efforts in developing our safety management system
Multiple meetings with employees, leadership, and EHS to help provide a new message
Meeting 1:1 with employees and leaders to help demonstrate being a safety leader and easing concerns
Working with leadership to ensure issues are addressed building employee confidence and trust

Today, Building Services serves as a commendable model of an effective and positive safety culture, leading to a continued decrease in recorded injuries. It stands as a valuable reference point for other Administrative Operations departments to gauge their adherence to AO's guiding principles of safety.

Shane Haselby, Eric Butt

2022 Presidential Safety Award Winners

Dr. Matthew Swabey - Dr. Matthew Swabey has been a key member of the College of Engineering Safety Committee for 5 years. We have come to count on Matthew for his expertise with safe disposal of batteries – a presentation he has given to our committee multiple times.

In addition to his service on the COE Safety Committee, Matthew is Director of the Bechtel Innovation Design Center (BIDC). Since the Center’s opening in 2016, Matthew has built a model safety culture at BIDC. His innovative use of tools like Passport Badges to provide training for all the center users demonstrates his ability to find tools to solve problems. Not only has he established a solid safety culture at BIDC, but he constantly works to improve facility safety by introducing new tools / techniques and improving training content and operating procedures. For example, he and his team developed a system that requires users to scan their PUID before using equipment; a red or green light on the interface indicates the users’ training status (green indicates user is authorized to work on the machine). This system makes checking safety status throughout the building much easier.

Dr. Matthew Swabey, Eric Butt

Mr. Bill Schoenlein - Bill Schoenlein began working at Purdue in the 1970's and has worn many "safety" hats over the years. Currently, he is working as a Preclinical Studies Manager in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and serves as BME's safety committee chair, building safety coordinator, contact for the ISP Program, and a member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). In each of these roles, there is a safety component of Bill's responsibilities to ensure that facilities are hazard free and that people have a safe working environment in Martin Jischke Hall. At any given time, Bill is the Principal Investigator on over 25 active research protocols, supervises a team of Veterinary/Animal Technicians, and provides standard operating procedures on a variety of tasks that ensure important research is conducted in a safe and consistent manner. Bill's personal leadership in safety at Purdue has spanned decades and he has been involved with innovative studies throughout. A memorable project, that we all have available to us today, is the testing of algorithms used for cardiac defibrillation that were integrated into the Automated External Defibrillator (Harper, 2013). Let's all recognize and thank Bill for his commitment to safety and his contributions to our access to life saving devices like the AED!

Bill Schoenlein, Eric Butt

Dr. Shaneka Lawson - Dr. Shaneka Lawson is a 2011 graduate of Purdue’s Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. Upon graduation, she was offered employment as a Research Plant Physiologist by the USDA Forest Service with an office here on campus within FNR. In 2015, Shaneka took over management of Pfen258, formerly a Tissue Culture lab, and now acts as a Genomics, Physiology, and Plant Pathology research lab. She spent many weekends and her free time transforming the lab from a cluttered dusty mess to the clean and organized space it is today. Shaneka completely overhauled the space and rearranged the area to be more conductive to research. The breadth of the work is not truly apparent unless someone was familiar with the lab in its prior condition. Regardless, the use of clear storage bins and labels has made the laboratory much brighter and more inviting. Also, as signage is fairly expensive, Shaneka took it upon herself to create professional signs in PowerPoint that are displayed throughout the lab and on the external doors. In addition to cleaning, organizing, and creating signage, Shaneka also updated the laboratory’s safety plans, generated an accurate chemical inventory, downloaded and printed the newest SDS forms for each chemical, and performs weekly chores to keep the space running smoothly. She serves as an active participant on the Forest Service and Purdue FNR safety committees and handles all lab related concerns such as inspections and maintenance while performing her role as a Primary Investigator in FNR and for the USDA. When informed of the award, Dr. Lawson was extremely excited and grateful that her endless hours of free time spent updating and shaping the lab are appreciated. Shaneka is currently at a conference in Baltimore, MD but has extended her sincere thanks for being considered for this award and is truly humbled by the honor.

Dr. Shaneka Lawson, Eric Butt

2019 Presidential Safety Award Winner

Dr. Gabriela Nagy, Industrial Education Director, Chemical Engineering - After joining the School in February 2013, she implemented changes to the existing safety program that led to a more safety aware community and safer work practices in the lab. Some of her accomplishments are:
- Introduced the "Safety Moment" at the beginning of each Graduate Seminar (April 2018)
- Re-invigorated the ChE safety committee by recruiting two new graduate student members every year.
- Developed and implemented online yearly safety refresher training (2015) and an efficient training procedure for all ChE undergraduate research students.
- Introduced (2014) the yearly ChE Excellence in Safety Award to recognize graduate students' commitment to safety.
- Initiated the development of the ChE Specific Safety Policies, including the "One glove policy" which restricts the use of chemical resistant safety gloves to specific areas of FRNY (2015).
- Introduced monthly unannounced safety inspections of ChE labs (2016) to promote safe work practices.
- Shares safety incidents and near misses with the School, as a way of learning from these events and to prevent similar situations from happening.
- Introduced, developed and taught a new, in-house "Safety in ChE" course for first-year ChE graduate students (2015).
- Coordinates the activities for the Chemical Engineers for Safety Seminars (ChESS) graduate student led safety education program.

Carol Shelby, Gabriela Nagy and Christopher Agnew