Trainer Spotlight

Bernie holds a B.S. in chemistry and an M.S. is Safety, Security, and Emergency Management. Bernie played basketball in college and pledges his love for the sport and plans to keep playing until he can’t move anymore. He loves spending time with family and has a fun family tradition of food shopping for Christmas Eve dinner which starts with the whole family meeting for breakfast and ends with a big family dinner.

Bernie likes the wide range of positions and situations the water/wastewater industry offers. Bernie started in the industry as the Quality Assurance Officer at ALCOSAN and helped the system achieve its first laboratory accreditation. Since then he has gained 18 years of experience and in addition to working in the laboratory, he worked as the Interceptor System Supervisor and in the Safety Department. He has a passion for safety and wishes more systems would have the ability to keep up with OSHA Standards and the ability to easily purchase all the safety equipment needed but understands the financial burden on systems with limited budgets. As a safety instructor, one of his funniest training experiences was when he was providing PPE training for sample collectors. The staff collected samples for industrial pre-treatment and were a bit overwhelmed when shown how different gloves respond to a chemical. They never considered that chemical-resistant gloves don’t protect for all chemicals. They went from beyond surprise to maybe frightened to relieved when they were shown how to determine the proper glove type.

Bernie enjoys working as a trainer and suggest that anyone coming into the industry take every possible training class. He believes that the more staff is aware of all the details of the facilities’ operations and mainenance, the better the system and staff will be. He suggests staff work on the safety side to ensure that they have a long career and are able to enjoy their loved ones well into retirement.