The Safety Committee provides information, resources and services to improve human resource management and occupational safety and health practices to reduce and eventually eliminate occupational injuries, illnesses and fatalities
Current Projects | Committee Members | TRSA Staff Liaison
Current Projects
Priority Issues
Committee members guide TRSA in identifying opportunities for the industry to reduce injury and illness risks and achieve compliance, particularly with federal OSHA regulations, often driven by third-party standards (such as NFPA and ANSI). Compliance guidance is provided on this website’s Safety Resources page, plus possible control solutions and prevention alternatives, citing published resources. Topics identified for current and future projects include:
- Lockout/Tagout (Hazardous Energy Control)
- Confined Space
- Electrical Safety
- Ergonomics
- Chemical
- Emergency Action Planning
Safety Summit
The committee provides guidance and content for the Safety Summit to enhance TRSA’s efforts to raise the bar among textile services operators for in-plant workplace safety instruction effectiveness and industry-wide improvement. As individual facilities become more sophisticated in injury prevention tactics, TRSA plans to provide further guidance to help operators strategize and increase the prominence of safety in their corporate cultures. Participating in this Summit helps ensure operators hire the proper expertise, immediately assesses their greatest risks and devise near-term action plans for developing standards and communicating them to operators.
Industry Safety Survey
This questionnaire and the resulting Textile Services Industry Safety Report enable participants to benchmark their safety programs against the industry’s progress and demonstrate to OSHA they voluntarily improve their safety performance. Submitting data is as simple as copying figures from the OSHA Form 300A that every plant and depot post in their facilities from February through April. Participation builds the industry’s resistance to OSHA inspections, citations and fines. Individual operators learn key details that determine how their companies rated in the quest toward zero-incident performance in the prior year.
Committee Members
Chair: Charles Edelman – Unitex Healthcare Linen Services, Elmsford, NY
Vice Chair: Jay Addis – Alsco, Salt Lake City, UT
Rob Alexander– SonicAire Inc., Winston-Salem, NC
Mike Altendorf – PureStar Group, Cape Coral, FL
Kattie Dibert – HandCraft Linen Service, Richmond, VA
Rochelle Gaudette – UniFirst Corp., Wilmington, MA
Dan Getter – UniFirst Corp., Schnecksville, PA
Colin Giles – Unitex Healthcare Linen Services, Elmsford, NY
Douglas Green – Tingue, Chicago, IL
Mark Hall, Cintas Corp., Kennesaw, GA
Michael J. Halter – Haylor Freyer & Coon, Inc., Syracuse, NY
Mark Harad-Oaks, Arway Linen & Uniform, Philadelphia, PA
Stephen Jenkins – Cintas Corp., Milford, OH
John Koduru – Washing Systems, LLC, Loveland, OH
Fred Kostner – Mission Linen Supply, Salinas, CA
Sandi McCulloch – Crothall Laundry Services, Baldwin, WI
Michelle McNeil – Healthcare Linen Services Group, Batavia, IL
Caleb Paige – ImageFIRST Healthcare Laundry Specialists, Kansas City, MO
Patrick Robertson – Tingue, Washago, Ontario, Canada
Trisha Sullivan – Gunderson Uniform & Linen Rental, Menasha, WI
Rusty Thomas – Superior Linen Service, Tulsa, OK
Brian Varner – Safety Solutions for Healthcare, Elizabeth, CO