Returning to Work During COVID-19 Pandemic -- Virtual Meeting --
August 26, 2020 - 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

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Meeting Description:
This meeting is intended to be an interactive webinar geared toward furthering your knowledge and understanding of the novel coronavirus pandemic, and some of the latest COVID-19 developments and how they may impact your efforts to get your companies and  non-profit efforts back up and consistently running.  We will introduce the concept of the “Hierarchy of Controls”, describing how some COVID-19 exposure control can be more effective than others and why.  Finally, we will provide links to governmental and non-governmental COVID-19 “Back-to-Work” guidance and informational sources, along with discussion with you on how to make best use of them.  

Speakers:

Frank Pokrywka, Ed.D., CIH,  FAIHA retired as the Industrial Hygiene Manager for the University of Pittsburgh EH&S Department in 2018 where he was recognized for his expertise in asbestos abatement, indoor air quality, water quality and laboratory safety. He is currently providing part time IH consulting services for KTA Tator and AM Health and Safety. Prior to joining Pitt in 1996, he spent 12 years as an IH consultant for SE Technologies, 5 years with US Steel, 2 with Koppers Research and 3 years with the air pollution division of Wheelabrator-Frye. During his 47 year career in academia, consulting, industry and construction he has amassed a wide ranging knowledge of safety, health and environmental matters. 

In 1973 he obtained his B.S. in Biophysics and Microbiology from Pitt and in 1978 an M.S. in Industrial Hygiene from Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health. In 2016, Frank earned his Doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Pitt’s School of Education. Throughout his career, he has published articles, taught classes and gave presentations on environmental clean-up, air monitoring, confined space entry, respiratory protection, noise monitoring, mold, legionnaires disease, PPE use, emergency response, chemical exposures and radiation protection. 

Frank Has been involved with the AIHA both at the Local Section and National levels since 1976. He participated in a number of Pittsburgh Local Section and Allegheny County Health Department committees. He served two terms as Director for the Pittsburgh Local Section (LS) (93-94 and 2000-2001); President cycle (2003-2005) and has been the LS Secretary since 2005.  At the National level of AIHA Frank served on the IAQ committee for several years, volunteered as a session monitor during the St. Louis and Toronto AIHCE conferences and assisted with hands on equipment training during an IH Fundamentals Course held in Pittsburgh. In recognition for his many contributions and years of service to the Profession of Industrial Hygiene, Doctor Pokrywka was named as an AIHA  Fellow in 2013.  

Raffie Sessa, a Certified Industrial Hygienist and Fellow of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, retired as an industrial hygiene (IH) and safety professional working in industry in 2011.  He started and continues to operate a part-time IH and safety consulting business that has successfully conducted safety and health audits at customer facilities as well as performing many Industrial Hygiene exposure assessments for clients from many different industries. He has 40 years of IH and safety work experience.
He obtained a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, and an M.S. in Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Science from Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA, in 1980.

Prior to retirement and part-time consultation work in IH and safety, he spent 23 years as an industrial hygiene and safety professional for Bayer and then Bayer Material Science where he spent the last 8 years as the Corporate Manager of Industrial Hygiene and Safety, managing corporate safety and health governance, and successful corporate-wide safety and health risk assessment and control processes resulting in some significant risk and cost reductions.  

In his early career he served as the first industrial hygienist at an 80+ year-old, PPG chemical complex in Barberton, Ohio.  He also spent 2 years with IT Corporation, a national environmental response and hazardous waste site assessment and mitigation company where he learned to make safety, IH, environmental, hazardous waste mitigation and waste transport decisions in emergency situations.  While there, he developed and implemented, safety and health work plans for many waste contamination and cleanup, and Superfund hazardous waste site mitigation efforts.  Other positions Mr. Sessa served in include: a year as the HES manager at a Boeing facility in Washington D.C., over 2 years as an Industrial Hygienist at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, in West Mifflin, PA and a year as the Vice President of Safety and IH services at AM Health and Safety, Inc., a Safety and Health consulting company.
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Mr. Sessa has been married to his wife Shelly the last 39 years and has one son, a bad dog and a horse.  He has been a member of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA) since 1979, and has served a term as Treasurer and as a Director of the AIHA Pittsburgh Local Section over the last 30 years. In recognition of his contributions to IH and years of service to the Industrial Hygiene Profession, Mr. Sessa was named as a Fellow of the AIHA in 2014

Online Registration is required. 

$25 Pittsburgh AIHA Member
$30 NON-Member

Students are FREE (no payment req.)

Registered attendees will receive email with ZOOM meeting information prior to the event.  

Questions related to registration can be sent via email to ckirsch@pittsburghaiha.org.
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Click HERE for link to payment page.

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