The Alliance Awards Banquet was held on January 13, 2010 at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. Our keynote speaker was Henry Ward, a logistics expert from Dow Chemical who spoke about railcar transportation of hazmats.

Thank you to our awards banquet sponsors – Frost Brown Todd LLC and Dow Chemical.

Four chemical safety awards were awarded. The award recipients are listed below.

Keith Mesch, outgoing Alliance chair (left) and Mike Freeman of GE Water and Process Technologies (right).

GE Water and Process Technologies received this award for developing a comprehensive tank integrity testing program for its North American operations.

The goal of the program is to identify aboveground storage tanks that pose a risk of release and take them out of service for repair or replacement before a release occurs.

Once this process is fully implemented in North America, it will be incorporated in South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Deb Leonard of Environmental Quality Management, Inc. (EQ); Ken Edgell of Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services; Keith Mesch, outgoing Alliance chair (left) and Patricia Nance of TERA.

The Hamilton County Department of Environmental Services, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA) and Environmental Quality Management, Inc. (EQ) received this award for researching, developing, writing and publishing Hamilton County's first air toxics report. Available at www.hcdoes.org, the report helps Hamilton County residents understand what chemicals are in our air and what that information means in terms of public health.

Keith Mesch, outgoing Alliance chair (left) and
Ed Frambes of the Hamilton County LEPC (right).

Ed Frambes of the Hamilton County Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) received this award for planning and completing more than 20 site safety visits to local industry. These visits serve to make facility operators aware of the emergency planning activities of the county, establish a face to face relationship between facility operators and emergency planning personnel, and verify the accuracy of reports regarding the quantity of hazardous materials at a facility.

Kim Dietrich of UC (left); Keith Mesch, outgoing Alliance chair (middle)
and Kim Cecil of Children's Hospital (right).

Kim Cecil, Ph.D. of Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Kim Dietrich, Ph.D. of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine's Department of Environmental Health, received this award for their commitment to the Cincinnati Lead Study, the longest running lead study in the world. Kim Dietrich has served as principal investigator for the lead study since its inception in 1979. Kim Cecil used MRI technology to show permanent structural and functional damages occur within the brains of people who suffered lead exposure as children.

Keith Mesch, outgoing Alliance chair (left) and Marjorie Evert (right).

Marjorie Evert, local volunteer, environmental activist and long-term member of the Alliance for Chemical Safety's Steering Team, received this award in honor of her exemplary volunteerism for her community, her church and the environment.