Good Day and welcome to IAQ Radio+ episode 746. This week we welcome S700 Consensus Body (CB) Chair Bran Lynch, Vice Chair John Pletcher, Restoration Renaisance Man Mark Springer and CB member Cliff Zlotnik. We also welcome special guest Co-host Rusty Amarante for a look behind the scenes at the development of the ANSI/IICRC S700 Standard for Fire and Smoke Damage Restoration. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+.

John Pletcher has 40 years in the disaster restoration industry. He is the Owner / operator of Restortech in Herndon, VA for 34 years now. John joined RIA (then ASCR) in 1996 (primarily to get to know Marty King). He was mentored by Marty King for 20+ years and was asked to participate in RIA's Fire Standard (FS) #2 (by Marty King) June 2013 – 2019. In 2017 he became 2nd Vice Chair of FS #2. Today he is the Vice chair of IICRC S700 2019 – 2024. John was the RIA Martin L. King Award winner 2022.

Bran Lynch has been in the property restoration business for over 25 years and is happy to be known as a utility player within BELFOR. He has worked as everything from warehouse helper, to senior project manager to expert witness. His relationship with the S700 began with the development of FS2, and he was honored to be asked to Chair the consensus body for the duration of the S700 development.

Mark Springer is a highly regarded and experienced President/CEO skilled in successfully expanding a multi-location residential and commercial services company across a broad geographical region. Mark has a demonstrated ability to drive market-leading performance, dynamic growth, and profitability. He grew his company from 1 to 7 profitable locations through several acquisitions and greenfield growth. He led the acquisition of the company by private equity in 2020, positioning it as the platform company for FLEET Response, which surged from $20mm to over $150mm in less than 18 months.

This week we welcome Elliott Horner, PhD & Nicholas Nassikas, MD for a discussion about Indoor air: Guidelines, policies, and regulation from their Paradigms and perspectives article in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (JACI).

Nicholas Nassikas, MD is an attending physician in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at BIDMC and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on how weather and air quality affect the respiratory health of children and adults.

Dr. Elliott Horner, Lead Scientist at UL Solutions has worked in the IAQ field for over 30 years, conducting research and field investigations, providing training, disaster response and litigation support and was director of an IAQ laboratory. He is a recognized expert on fungal allergens and the impact of moisture in buildings, and has published over 50 research papers and book chapters. He has served on committees for ASTM, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, AIHA, and USGBC and served on the Board of IAQA. He is past chair of the ASHRAE Environmental Health Committee, and is currently on Standard 62.1 and 241 committees. He also holds a Healthcare Construction Certificate from ASHE, is a LEED AP, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Allergy.

Good Day and welcome to IAQ Radio+ episode 744. This week this week we welcome back Dr. Joe Spurgeon to give his perspective on the AIHA White Paper, Mold and Dampness in the Built Environment. We could not think of a better way to end the year than doing a wrap up show with Dr. Spurgeon. He is one of our most popular guests. 

Joe Spurgeon, PHD, has a multidisciplinary doctorate degree in Analytical Chemistry and Environmental Health from the University of Pittsburgh; and was a Certified Industrial Hygienist from 1993 – 2013. His career has included working as a research chemist on the NBS Lead-Paint Poisoning Program, directing the FAA’s Combustion Toxicology Laboratory, performing Health Assessments for CDC/ATSDR, implementing US EPA’s Laboratory Exposure Assessment Project, and working as a consultant specializing in microbial indoor air quality for US PHS. He has performed numerous residential and commercial investigations involving water intrusions and microbial contaminants; has taught courses on mold investigations, sampling, and data interpretation methods; and has served as an expert witness in numerous mold cases. His books are available at http://expertonmold.com/

This week we welcome Chris Laszcz-Davis - OHTA, Chelsea Earhart – BGC, Larry Sloan – AIHA and Dr. Albert Tien -WHWB-US to talk about global worker health and the new Global Pathway for CIH Accreditation.

This week we focus on organizations involved in global worker safety and their new collaboration for educating and mentoring global EH&S professionals. We discuss how someone with no specific education, such as a degree in engineering, can become a CIH through the program. It starts with the training from OHTA; work experience with WHWB-US in places that are in need of help with health and safety; proceeds to membership in AIHA, along with participation in committees, etc.; and concludes with an application and a test to obtain a CIH accreditation.

Chris Laszcz-Davis, MS, CIH, FAIHA, FAIC is the Founder & President of The Environmental Quality Organization (EQO) LLC, She has over forty (40) years of executive management including as a former Corporate Vice-President, Environmental Affairs for Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation. Prior to industry, Chris worked for the US Department of Energy (DOE) in both DC and the west coast as a regional EH&S Manager and at the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. Chris is presently Co-Chair of the global Occupational Hygiene Training Association (OHTA).

Chelsea Earhart, MBA, CAE, ICE-CCP is the Executive Director of The Board for Global EHS Credentialing (BGC®). Over the past 22 years, Chelsea Earhart has served as the certification / accreditation departments of associations representing diverse professions and industries. She has also helped many certification and licensure organizations create and implement exams and examination programs.

Lawrence Sloan serves as CEO of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA). Before this, he served as CEO at SOCMA, a trade association representing the US specialty chemical industry. He began his career as a chemical engineer at Air Products. Mr. Sloan earned a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Dr. Albert Tien is the Managing Partner for 2TSustainAbility. He is also President and one of the founding members of Workplace Health Without Borders (US). Dr. Tien holds a PhD Biotechnology from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; he also was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Oakridge Institute for Science and Engineering. His MS Life Sciences is from New Mexico Highlands University and his undergraduate work was at Tulane University in Biological Chemistry.

This week we welcome back Robert "Concrete Bob" Higgins to discuss new and conclusive research that confirms his theories on surface influences with concrete. Bob’s presentation blows up the old paradigm about how and why many concrete surfaces have moisture issues and why it can be so difficult for restoration contractors to dry concrete surfaces. Bob has dealt with a lot of resistance to his ideas and now he claims the final pieces to the puzzle have been located. 

Robert Higgins has been involved with moisture-related issues in concrete and waterproofing since 1976 and has been developing products for such use since 1980. He was a product development chemist for SINAK. Bob is equally involved in product and process development, having developed most of the products manufactured and marketed by his former company SINAK Corporation, as well as owning or co- owning patents for moisture testing. He has expertise in moisture-related concrete issues, having been involved with waterproofing, technical committees, professional groups, lecturing, teaching; and construction defect litigation.

Good Day and welcome to IAQ Radio+ episode 741 this week we welcome Dr. William Chapman to talk about chemical monitoring for IAQ and odors.

Air by CC² Inc (AbC) was founded by William Chapman, PhD in response to his experiences working in the air testing industry to provide proven solutions to problems in indoor air. He has PhD in Chemistry from Penn State and completed postdoctoral studies at Columbia University. AbC is built on his education and years of industrial experience, mainly developing new and improved methods for point-of-care (i.e. onsite) testing. In previous employment, he became frustrated with the lack of a proven solution to problems that his lab found, especially in the home indoor air setting as well as with the quality of the point-of-care samplers that are in use today.

Anthony Cox is the Building Science Manager and Lead Trainer at Community Housing Partners, Energy Solutions Division, with over 30 years of experience in Weatherization. Since 1999, he has played a vital role in developing and delivering training programs internationally for the home performance industry

Anthony is the creator of widely recognized training tools like House of Pressure® and H.A.M. House®, designed to illustrate building science principles effectively. Holding a business management degree and licenses in Master HVAC and Residential Building Analysis in Virginia, Anthony is also certified by the Building Performance Institute.

Anthony is actively involved in national committees, contributing to the development of industry standards.

Good Day and welcome to IAQ Radio+ episode 738 this week we welcome Darren Hudema, Puroclean Joseph Morphis, Rainbow, Ken Siders, ETA, Paul Clark, Storm Consultants and Tim Fagan, Belfor with a boots on the ground report on the restoration industry’s response to hurricane’s Helene and Milton. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+.

This week Radio Joe Hughes and Pete “Global Restoration Watchdog” Consigli will interview a diverse panel of restoration responders to the back to back hurricanes that affected Florida and several southeastern states this past month. The watchdog will be sitting in for the Z-man this week as Cliff has a conflict. Radio Joe and Pete have recruited 3 prominent panelists from the restoration industry to include, the President of Rainbow, Josh Miller, the Technical Training Director for PuroClean, Darren Hudema, and the President of 1-800-Board-up, 1-800-Water-Damage and Blue Kangaroo Packoutz, Tim Fagan. Rounding out the 5 person all star panel are 2 Floridians from the Environmental consulting and Roofing sectors, Ken Siders of ETA Environmental and Paul Clark of Storm Consultants.

Radio Joe and the Restoration Watchdog will use a round table format to have the panel report on what they are seeing on the ground. This will include the challenges being faced by responders regarding mobilization, logistics, insurance coverages, and compliance with state licensing.

Additionally the panel will weigh-in on the importance to have a support system and need for a vetted network of providers if one is to respond to an area wide catastrophic disaster zone!

Kevin Kennedy has over 30 years’ experience as an environmental health scientist, including 21 years’ working at Children’s Mercy Kansas City (CMKC), where he retired in 2023. At CMKC he led the establishment of the Environmental Health Program (EHP). The program has assessed thousands of homes and schools, providing patient families, childcares, and schools with resources to assist them in identifying and reducing indoor environmental exposures that may result in health problems for children.

During his time there, the program received over $7 million in program and research grants and won three national awards, including the HUD Secretary’s Award for Healthy Homes. Grant funding also supported a variety of research projects focusing on indoor environmental health issues, environmental allergens, home environmental interventions, exposure assessment, and more recently on geospatial analysis of health disparities and social determinants of health. Kevin is a co-author on more than 30 academic research publications and the primary author of the Building Performance Institute’s Healthy Housing Principles Reference Guide. He teaches professional courses in environmental health assessment and investigations, environmental measurement and sampling, building science, and healthy homes.

Mr. Kennedy is a Certified Indoor Environmental Consultant and previously worked as an environmental analytical chemist, research scientist in extractive metallurgy, and in a previous life, was a historic home restoration carpenter and woodworker. Over his 20+ years advocating for children’s health he has served on many national and local coalitions and committees advocating for the environment, better housing, climate change action, and understanding the community factors that have led to health disparities affecting children in the Kansas City region and across the US.

Good Day and welcome to IAQ Radio+ episode 737. This week we welcome Joe Spurgeon, PhD. If you ever write a mold report and it goes to court Dr. Joe Spurgeon could well be the expertonmold.com that reviews your report. Dr. Joe has retired his CIH and does not get out in the field much these days but he still reviews reports and testifies in mold related case s on a regular basis.

This week he has volunteered to tell us what makes a quality report and how to write a mold assessment report and not a data report. If you don’t know the difference this is the show for you. In addition to the presentation he put together for us this week Dr. Spurgeon has put up a special free link https://expertonmold.com/product/iaq-radio-presentation-free-digital-download/ with his IAQ Radio presentation plus 38 new slides, copies of field sheets, "Notes on Writing a Mold Report", an example mold report and a mold site inspection list.

You can also order any of Dr. Spurgeon's books from his website expertonmold.com.

Another great show for continuing education credits learn more here https://www.iaqradio.com/ce-credits/

Joe Spurgeon, PHD, has a multidisciplinary doctorate degree in Analytical Chemistry and Environmental Health from the University of Pittsburgh; and was a Certified Industrial Hygienist from 1993 – 2013. His career has included working as a research chemist on the NBS Lead-Paint Poisoning Program, directing the FAA’s Combustion Toxicology Laboratory, performing Health Assessments for CDC/ATSDR, implementing US EPA’s Laboratory Exposure Assessment Project, and working as a consultant specializing in microbial indoor air quality for US PHS. He has performed numerous residential and commercial investigations involving water intrusions and microbial contaminants; has taught courses on mold investigations, sampling, and data interpretation methods; and has served as an expert witness in numerous mold cases. His books are available at http://expertonmold.com/

Dr. Tess Eidem a practitioner and researcher working with the cannabis industry. She is interested in IEQ issues from a very broad perspective such as relative humidity and ventilation to very specific topics such as Bioaerosol exposures when cultivating cannabis. This week we will explore cannabis production, the worker health issues it poses and how we can learn from this new and quickly expanding area. Her most recent paper with Tara Nordgren and Mark Hernandez is on Bioaerosol Exposures and Respiratory Diseases in Cannabis Workers. 

Tess Eidem’s doctoral research focused on developing novel antibiotics against bacterial pathogens, and her scientific career has centered on bringing modern microbiology and RNA biology practices to promote human health. Leveraging her scientific expertise, Dr. Eidem transitioned into the cannabis industry where she spent four years working directly in cannabis production and quality management. This unique experience allowed her to combine her hands-on skills in manufacturing with microbiology and product safety as a Preventive Controls Qualified Individual (PCQI) to help cannabis cultivators minimize potential hazards within their facilities and in their products.

Having witnessed firsthand the challenges of microbial contamination in the cannabis industry, Dr. Eidem returned to the University of Colorado Boulder, where she currently works as a Senior Research Scientist in the Aerobiology and Disinfection Laboratory, with a focus on practical building science. Her research investigates bioaerosol persistence associated with cannabis environments, including airborne molds, allergens, and pathogens. She is driven to connect unbiased scientific research with environmental engineering principles and applying them to the cannabis space to improve worker well-being, plant health, and consumer safety.