October 2023 Newsletter

President Don May’s Message
 
The SPSP Board of Directors is thrilled to welcome four new members to the SPSP Board.  Melissa Cairns, Joe Mohorovic, Heather Capell Bramble, and Marie-Claude Simard, all highly accomplished product safety professionals (see below), have embraced the mission of our organization, and will help to guide us as we grow in the future. They join Laurel Roney, Kristin Cordz, Ken d’Entremont, Lisa Trofe, Ken Ross, Brenda Torres, Mark Hickok, and me on a team of dedicated product safety professionals committed to providing valuable information and education to members of the product safety community.
 
Thanks to our sponsor, Sedgwick Brand Protection, SPSP will expand our free webinar series from 10 to 12 webinars beginning in 2024. The schedule for upcoming webinars can be found on the SPSP website (Upcoming Webinars). If you would like to suggest topics for upcoming webinars, please let us know by emailing to info@productsafetyprofessionals.org. 
 
In addition, we will be offering a new program next year – video podcasts in which experts do a deep dive into the most important and sometimes controversial subjects in the product safety field.  The video podcasts will be available to SPSP members only.  Look for more information about this program in the future.
 
We are a rapidly growing organization as more people recognize the value we bring to the field.  Becoming a member of SPSP not only helps give credibility to those in our field, but members also can receive discounts on our university-level educational programs and will have access to member-only information on our website.  Membership is only $125 per year.  To sign up, go to Membership Link.    
 
Last, if you’d like to learn more about SPSP and the educational programs we offer, join us at the ICPHSO 2024 Annual Meeting and Training Symposium in Orlando, FL, which will take place from 2/19/24 to 2/22/24.

New SPSP Board members

Melissa Cairns
 
Melissa Cairns is a Legal Specialist in Consumer Law in 3M’s Office of General Counsel.  In that role she manages CPSC regulatory reporting, reverse logistics and participates in the risk assessment process for new and existing products. Melissa became a Certified Consumer Product Safety Professional in 2019 after completing the St. Louis University/ADK certification program. 
 
Joe Mohorovic
 
Joe Mohorovic served as a Commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from 2014 - 2017.  He is currently a Senior Managing Consultant at Engineering Services, Inc. (ESi) where he specializes in adverse event analysis, regulatory compliance counseling, and litigation support (expert testimony).
Prior to his presidential appointment as a Commissioner, Joe served as chief of staff and director of international programs at the CPSC before joining Intertek where he spent seven years leading global teams in providing compliance and risk management services.  Joe also served two terms in the New Mexico Legislature from 1999 - 2002.
 
Heather Capell Bramble
 
Heather Capell Bramble is Vice President of Global Product Safety and Regulatory Compliance for Mattel, Inc. She is a senior executive and seasoned attorney with more than 25 years of compliance, management, and legal experience in corporations, government, private law firms, and politics. Prior to working at Mattel, Heather was Senior Corporate Counsel for Global Product and Food Safety & Compliance at Amazon.com. Previously, Heather was Chief Counsel to Commissioner Robinson at the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well as a trial attorney in the Division of Enforcement at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. She has also spent significant time as regulatory and compliance attorney and as a litigator as partner at private law firms.
 
Marie-Claude Simard
 
Marie-Claude Simard is currently Director, Global Product Safety at BRP and works at a global level as a strategic and communicative leader in a manufacturing environment.  She has worked in the powersports and marine industries for over twenty years. She brings experience in process optimization, detailed risk analysis and strategic plan development. Marie-Claude solves problems by applying a realistic and responsible approach. She is known as a rigorous professional who is able to deliver results and inspire, train, and develop multidisciplinary teams.
 

Crisis Management Conference features former Missouri Circuit Judge as instructor
When the 2023 SPSP/ADK Crisis Management Conference convenes on Nov. 7-9 on the campus of University of Missouri at St. Louis, it will be the first time that one of our product safety education programs has attracted a judicial instructor. In this case, participants will hear a judicial perspective on crisis management requirements from Michael David, a former Circuit Judge of the 22nd Judicial Circuit in Missouri with more than forty years’ experience as an attorney, judge, mediator/arbitrator, and Special Master. He served as the Circuit’s Presiding Judge from 2003-2004 after serving as the President of Missouri’s Circuit Judge’s Association (2000-2001).
Here is the theme he plans to address:

"Despite your best-laid plans, something lurking behind every human endeavor is “Murphy’s Law” – anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  If someone suffers a personal or economic injury by using a product you designed, manufactured or sold, you are likely to come into contact with someone like Judge David. 

The students will come away from this session with the realization that even under the best of circumstances, once a legal action is initiated, a detailed process of investigation/debate is triggered, refereed by an impartial judicial officer, and aimed at determining where fault for the claimed injury lies and to assess an appropriate remedy for the accompanying loss.
“The ultimate decision of whether you negligently did something you shouldn’t have done or didn’t do something you should have done, which caused this injury, will not be yours to make.  This decision may well be made by a jury of citizens who will certainly not have expertise in how to make a safer product but, after hearing evidence from the parties to the lawsuit, will reach conclusions as to what constituted an unreasonable risk of harm to an injured user of the product or service.”    
 For program information, click here. To register for the program, go to Crisis Management Registration.

Final Stage of Certification Program Approaching
The Consumer Product Safety Certification Services, SPSP’s affiliate that oversees the Professional Certification program, will be completing their work to determine which 2023 class members will have earned their designation as Certified Product Safety Professionals™.  A news release will be issued in November announcing the names of the 2023 class members who have passed the program’s requirements.  This is the inaugural class to attend under the auspices of Virginia Tech’s Research Center located in Arlington, VA.  This was also the first class that has had access to members of our product safety network in the nation’s capital who participated as instructors. We look forward to sharing this important announcement in the November SPSP Newsletter.