How will you be innovative with your safety this year? In episode nine of Women in Safety, we are speaking with Mary Jo Press Senior Staff Program Manager – Global Safety Center of Excellence from Tesla and Dr. Travis Kruse, Sr. Director, Safety Strategy and Solutions from Grainger about the Future of Safety, and how are we going to get Innovative for 2020 and beyond!
We talk about what are the largest safety problems we are currently facing, being innovative to eliminate these safety problems, how they believe safety could be done differently, what they might do to solve these safety problems and leveraging community for safety! Mary Jo and Travis share their knowledge and experience with us during our discussion.
About Our Guests:
Mary Jo Presscurrently serves as the Senior Staff Program Manager – Global Safety Center of Excellence from Tesla. Mary Jo is a proven leader in global Environment Health, Safety and Sustainability. She has a history of driving performance in large food, beverage, automotive, packaging and tobacco industries.
Mergers and acquisition management as well as emergency response and recovery have helped her connect her work skills with her personal desire to help others. Her global experience has triggered her desire for balanced corporate social responsibility and sustainability, particularly the need to address the entire life cycle of a system. Her move to Tesla allows her to responsibly pursue a safe and sustainable community in the Native American tradition of not depleting the earth and spirit of our global community.
Mary Jo has a desire to see others learn and grow. She has taught environmental management for the community college system as an adjunct professor, served on professional national leadership committees and mentored other safety professionals through the American Society of Safety Engineers. Mary Jo is a Sustainability Management Certified Professional (SMCP) and a Certified Fire Protection Specialist (CFPS). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from North Carolina State University and an MS degree in Occupational Safety and Health from Columbia Southern University where she graduated with honors and induction into Sigma Alpha Pi Honor Society – National Society of Leadership and Success.
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Travis Kruse currently serves as Grainger’s Sr. Director, Safety Strategy & Solutions. In this role Travis leads a dynamic team that helps develop and deploy the safety strategy including architecting new safety & health offers and solutions, directing our Field Safety Specialist team, helping Grainger customers solve complex problems and expanding Grainger’s reputation as an industry leader in safety.
Before joining Grainger, Travis spent 6 years at Lam Research as Director, Corporate Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS), Product Safety and Corporate Social Responsibility. While there, he established objectives, targets, and strategies enabling Lam to achieve a 74% reduction in OSHA recordable injury rate and an 85% reduction in OSHA lost work day case rate. Prior to Lam Research, he gained EHS leadership experience serving at the Director of Americas with Honeywell International (Environmental Combustion Controls division), Jim Beam Brands as an Environmental and Water Systems Manager and Intel Corporation as a safety engineer. During graduate school Travis served as the training coordinator for Murray State’s Occupational Safety and Health Training Center.
Travis has a PhD in Public Health from Oregon State University, M.S. in Environmental Science and B.S. in Occupational Safety & Health from Murray State University. Although Travis has specialized in several areas of environmental, safety and health he as a passion for developing and coaching organizations along their journey in integrated environment, safety and health management systems.
Travis holds multiple certifications in EHS:
- Certified Safety Professional
- Certified Hazardous Material Manager
- Exemplar Global Lead Auditor for ISO 9001, 14001, and 45001
- Class II Drinking Water Operator
- Class II Waste Water Operator
- Six-Sigma Greenbelt
- Laser Safety Officer
- OSHA Training Institute (OTI) authorized outreach instructor
Travis’s most recent contributions include the development of Grainger’s Field Safety Specialist team and his recent publication of his management system research in the Journal of Safety Research.
Kruse, T., Veltri, A., Branscum, A., (2019) Integrating safety, health and environmental management systems: A conceptual framework for achieving lean enterprise outcomes. Journal of Safety Research, 259-271
Article: Integrating safety, health and environmental management systems: A conceptual framework for achieving lean enterprise outcomes
Connect with Travis Kruse: