Phil La Duke Resumes Authoring Popular Worker Safety Blog

Oct. 28, 2010 - PRLog -- Internationally renowned speaker, writer, and safety expert announced today that he would resume writing his popular worker safety blog (www.philladuke.wordpress.com).  La Duke abruptly stopped writing the blog in August, leaving readers with only a cryptic message, "I am deliberating whether to continue writing this blog".

"I was disappointed that I ended my blog so abruptly" explains La Duke, "my quick departure and tight lipped final post left a lot of people scratching their heads, all I can say was circumstances were such that it was better to put the blog on hiatus rather than engage in a lot of conflict over the content.  Now that I am free from that circumstance I intend to resume blogging about issues business people care about."

La Duke declined to discuss the circumstances that lead to his abrupt suspension of his blog, except to say that more and more people felt they had the right to censor and edit his message and that he felt disingenuous allowing people who lacked either a publishing or safety background to approve or rewrite material submitted under his his by-line,

"I don't delude myself into thinking that I what I was writing was some great literary masterpiece, but I don't need any help looking stupid, and I just felt that allowing someone to second guess my work----especially given that the parties in question lacked the most rudimentary credentials in writing, publishing, or safety---for the sole purpose of inflating their egos would ultimately weaken the quality of the blog,"

In addition to his blog, La Duke is a regular contributor to "Facilities Safety Management" magazine and  Industrial Health & Safety News and his column, "The Safe Side" appears monthly in Fabricating and Metalworking magazine.

"I missed writing the blog, because it afforded me an opportunity to fine tune some of my academic, trade show, and magazine work before I submitted the final work to my publishers,"  La Duke added that while his discipline in writing in the past had been lax, the newly invigorated blog will be updated every Sunday at noon.

ABOUT PHIL LA DUKE
Phil La Duke is an internationally recognized speaker on culture change and performance improvement topics, particularly worker Safety and Lean Manufacturing. La Duke is currently an associate of Rockford Greene international, a Monroe-Michigan based company that specializes in business optimization solutions.  

Prior to joining Rockford Greene, La Duke was a lead developer of UAW-Chrysler’s major corporate change initiative, Bringing Excellence to Safety Teams (B.E.S.T.) that helped to take Chrysler from an industry laggard in worker injuries to being awarded the National Safety Council’s highest honor, the Green Cross for Safety Award, and being named one of North America’s top 20 Safest Companies by Occupational Safety magazine.  Mr. La Duke also led the design and development of SafetyIMPACT!

Mr. La Duke was Director, Training & Organizational Development for ASC Incorporated, a global tier-one automotive supplier.  During his eight-year tenure at ASC Mr. La Duke was responsible for designing, developing and executing organizational change interventions; founded the continuous improvement department; advising the Exec Team on corporate change strategies; and developing and administering ASC University. In addition to Safety, La Duke has extensive experience in problem solving techniques, Lean Manufacturing, Quality Operating Systems, and Trans-Cultural Training.

Mr. La Duke is an accomplished and engaging speaker who has presented at dozens of national and international venues including multiple trips to the podium at the National Safety Council; The American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE); and the XIV International Seminar in Mining Safety at Lima – Peru; . Mr. La Duke’s 2009 National Safety Council presentation, Selling Safety In Tough Times, was the subject of an article in EH&S Today magazine. And his speech at the International Symposium on Mining Safety In the Andes was the subject of numerous magazine articles.  La Duke has appeared on talk radio as an expert in planning, was interviewed by Go magazine as an expert in workplace productivity, and was interviewed as an expert in problem solving and crisis management for Business And The Environment Newsletter. He is also the author of the popular blog www.philladuke.wordpress.com.

An ex-newspaper reporter and columnist, Mr. La Duke is the author numerous articles most recently, Electronic Performance Support: The Changing Face of Safety Training for the November 2009 Issue of Facility Safety Magazine, and What’s Wrong with Safety Training and How to Fix It for the  June 2009 issue of Fabrication and Metalworking (F&M) magazine, and was interviewed for the Industry Spotlight feature of the June 2009 (National Safety Month) issue of Safety+Health magazine. La Duke has been

La Duke is a graduate of University of Michigan where he earned a Bachelor’s of General Studies in Education and a Certificate of Training Development and Design.