NMSA Recognizes AEU for Safety Expertise

 

 

 

 

 

 

The National Maritime Safety Association (NMSA) Annual Meeting was held last week in New Orleans at the Windsor Court Hotel June 23-25, 2010.  AEU is honored to have had our Senior Vice President and Director of Loss Control, Jimmy Burgin, moderate a panel discussion on Safety and the Next Generation: Shipyards v. Marine Cargo Handling at the meeting.  The panel included John Belcher, Regional Director of Loss Control with Cooper/T. Smith Stevedoring, Matt Mayon, Director of Safety with Conrad Industries and Steve Morris, Senior Loss Control Manager with AEU.

Jimmy Burgin has more than 20 years’ experience in maritime loss control.  He has served on the National Maritime Safety Association’s Technical Committee for fourteen years and six of those years served as Chairman of NMSA’s Technical Committee.   NMSA named Burgin the 2007 Man of the Year on March 28, 2008, recognizing him for his dedication in achieving safety in the marine cargo handling industry.

The National Maritime Safety Association (NMSA) represents the marine cargo handling industry in the United States in safety and health matters arising under various statutes, including the Occupational and Safety Health Act.

AEU Safety Committee Meeting held in Mobile

The American Equity Underwriters, Inc. (AEU) has just completed the latest meeting of its Safety Committee. The meeting was held in Mobile, AL during October 5 – 7, 2009, and it was attended by nearly 70 of the top maritime safety professionals in the country. It was a complete success by any measure. So let’s go ahead and measure it.

Socially, the attendees watched the Packers/Vikings game in catered comfort at AEUs headquarters office in downtown Mobile on Monday night and had dinner as a group at Felix’s Fish Camp, one of Mobile’s best restaurants on Tuesday night.

Attendance was astonishing. I have been to safety meetings and seminars conducted by other organizations recently where the presenters nearly outnumbered the attendees.

Feedback and evaluation by the attendees was uniformly very positive.

Expertise represented in the room was impressive. As I noted above, these were many of the top shipyard and stevedore safety experts in the country.

Technical content of the presentations was first class as always. Topics included Oil Industry Safety Training, Functional Capacity Testing, a MACOSH/OSHA Update, Lifting Gear Safety, Precautions for Working Inside Confined/Enclosed Spaces, and Claims scenarios in which the U.S. Department of Labor’s New Orleans District Director, David Duhon, participated. And finally, by any

Yardstick (there’s an acronym hidden here somewhere) I can safely say that the AEU Safety Committee Meeting has become the premier event of its type in the industry. The confidence that the American Longshore Mutual Association (ALMA) members have in AEU Senior Vice President Jimmy Burgin and his Loss Control Specialists Steve Morris, Rick Ellis, and Carl Halgren is clear as is the members’ appreciation for the improvement in their safety records that comes along with ALMA membership.

Note to Brokers: These are happy members. And the Safety Committee meetings are open ALMA members and their brokers.

The next meeting of the AEU Safety Committee is scheduled to be held in Mid-April, 2010 in New York City. Committee Chairman Steve Morris is seeking suggested topics for the next meeting. Please post your suggestions as comments to this blog posting.