Rockford Greene's Phil La Duke to Present A Culture of Myths at the Michigan Safety Conference

March 24, 2011 - PRLog -- (Monroe, MI) Rockford Greene International announced today that Rockford Greene associate, Phil La Duke will present a technical session based on his popular article, A Culture Of Myths, at the Michigan Safety Conference on April 19th in Lansing, Michigan.

A Culture of Myths first appeared in the October edition of Fabricating and Metalworking magazine, in La Duke’s monthly column The Safe Side. “I wrote A Culture of Myths to address what I saw as double standard that many safety professionals have when it comes to unsafe behaviors,” explains La Duke “I guess I was tired of hearing safety professionals talk out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, safety professionals deride the lack of attention focused on safety, but on the other hand they themselves frequently take risks and behave unsafely in their every day lives.  My intent wasn’t to call anyone out on this inconsistency, but I do believe that before we can expect workers to follow the rules we need to understand why we often lack credibility.”

This is the fourth consecutive year for La Duke who first appeared at the 2007 event when he co-presented with Aerospace manufacturer Williams International.

“2008 was a watershed moment for me,” remembers La Duke, “presenting with executives from a company as prestigious and well respected as Williams International really seemed to make an impression, and while I had presented at other notable venues previous to that appearance I think it was the Michigan Safety Conference that really started to build momentum for me.”

Prior to his 2007 appearance, La Duke presented at Automation Alley on the role of Safety in Operations Excellence.  “The Automation Alley event generated a lot of media buzz and established me someone with a different view of worker safety” relates La Duke “the speech I made drew parallels between safety and lean manufacturing.  People have done similar presentations in a variety of venues that are basically derivative of that speech.”

La Duke is a highly sought after speaker whose written work has been published in numerous magazines and journals.  In March of 2010 La Duke traveled to Lima, Peru to present "Selling Safety in Tough Times" at the 14th Annual Symposium on Mining Safety and had a his journal article, Creating Safety Cultures in Off-Shore operations was accepted for presentation at Loss Prevention 2010 in Brugges Belgium.  "Unfortunately I had to decline the invitation" explains La Duke "The conference was the week before I presented an executive session at the American Society of Safety Engineers in Baltimore and there just wasn't time for me to do both.  In the end I decided that it wasn't fair to either audience to speak unless I was able to give it my absolute best, and given the time and logistics of traveling to Belgium it would have taken too much energy; I presented in Baltimore instead."

The article can be read at: http://www.fabricatingandmetalworking.com/2010/10/a-cultu...

Phil La Duke is an internationally recognized writer and speaker on culture change and performance improvement topics, particularly worker Health and Safety and Lean Manufacturing. He has over 20 years manufacturing experience and has provided manufacturing training in five countries.

LaDuke is currently a safety and training expert with Rockford Greene International, a Monroe, MI-based business optimization services company. Prior to that he served as Director of Performance Improvement for O/E Learning (Troy, MI) a firm that specializes in productivity solutions. In his role, he was a lead developer of SafetyIMPACT!, the first Culture-Based Safety System that is currently sweeping industry.

Before joining O/E, he spent eight years as Director, Training & Organizational Development for ASC Incorporated, a global tier-one automotive supplier where he was responsible for designing, developing and executing organizational change interventions; founding 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.

As an accomplished and engaging speaker, he has presented at the National Safety Council; the Michigan Safety Conference (on multiple occasions to standing room only audiences); the Northern Utah Manufacturing Alliance (NUMA); the National Safety Council?s Texas Conference and Expo; the Canadian Society for Safety Engineering (CSE); and Automation Alley; the Society for Mechanical Engineers (SME) EASTEC?s Lean and Green symposium, the Society for Applied Learning Technology Washington Interactive Technologies Conference, the International Symposium on Mining Safety in The Andes, multiple sessions at the National Safety Council?s National Conference and Expo, and the American Society for Safety Engineers.

He is the author of "Performance Support: The Changing Face of Safety Training" for the November 2009 issue of Facilities Safety magazine, and What?s Wrong with Safety Training and How to Fix It for the August 2009 edition of Fabrication and Metalworking magazine. He was interviewed for the Industry Spotlight feature of the June 2009 issue of Safety+Health magazine, and his presentation ("Selling Safety in Tough Times") was the subject of an article in the August 2009 edition of EH&S Today. In addition to his articles, La Duke is author of a popular blog www.philladuke.wordpress.com.

LaDuke is a graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor?s of General Studies in Education and a Certificate of Training Development and Design.

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Rockford Greene International provides business optimization services for all of the key business elements: Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, Morale, and Environment.