MWC hosted members of the Internal Steering Committee (ISC) and External Advisory Board (EAB) in Minnesota for annual meetings that were held from September 26-27. The meetings were held at the Graduate Hotel in Minneapolis.

The Internal Advisory Board dove right into the agenda with a working lunch on Tuesday. They reviewed and adopted minutes from the 2022 meeting, reviewed the to-do list, gave updates on Resilience projects, and talked about the July 2024 Trainer Meeting. We then covered Procedure and Policy Manual updates, self-audit results, hiring and retaining trainers, and prepared for the External Advisory Board meeting. We ended the day by discussing the competitive renewal application, specific aims for 2020-2025, likely themes for program announcements, and community-based training center updates. Tuesday evening, we took in a MN Twins vs. Oakland A’s game. We stayed dry since our awesome seats were under the awning, and the Twins won 11-3! On Wednesday, we had breakout sessions to plan for competitive renewal and new curricula review. We also discussed our social media presence, communications/marketing strategies, and future process/content improvement on our course evaluations

The External Advisory Board began with a ‘working dinner’ at Glueks on Wednesday evening. We were joined by Jim Remington via Zoom (from Puerto Rico) to give the board an overview of activities during the past year, the annual final report, response to board recommendations from 2022, planning for the 2024 Training Meeting, and competitive renewal. We then heard from each training center on their program updates as well as an overview of our evaluation report from the last year. 

• Continue curriculum development for hazards related to lithium-ion batteries and electric vehicles

• Consider increasing the availability of “on-demand” online training 

• Move toward greater use of electronic evaluations and additional forms of evaluation

• Consider greater training related to PFAS chemicals and chemotherapy drugs

• Continue translation of curricula into languages other than English

• Find additional ways to utilize Board member expertise during the program year

ERSI, Ford Chicago Assembly – Chicago, IL
08/2023

• I used the ERSI Action Plan to assist with a co-worker’s injury, including a foot stuck in a conveyor roller.
• I regularly responded to medical calls and use my training to attend to fellow workers.

• My grandson was choking, and I was able to handle the situation.
• I explain to new employees the procedure for handling a tanker that is delivering hazardous materials to the site.

• We went through our supplies and took everything out of service that was damaged or expired.