Todd Hudson helps safety professionals become great trainers. As a former high-tech factory manager, he quickly discovered that training a 24/7, multi-national, multi-lingual, and multi-generational workforce to work safely while surrounded by hazardous chemicals and machinery was a huge challenge. Seeking a better way, he began applying the Lean methodology to training and knowledge transfer with spectacular results. For more than twenty years, Todd has helped improve safety training (and measurably improve outcomes) at copper mines in Arizona, hospitals and laboratories in Tennessee, private schools in Oregon, and warehouses in Washington, to name just a few. He is a frequent speaker and workshop leader at safety events and conferences, a guest on training podcasts, and a writer with articles in publications such as Chief Learning Officer Magazine, the New York Times, and The Business Journal. Todd holds a M.S. Industrial Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature and a certificate from Stanford University's Executive Program in Strategy and Organization. He was named Safety Professional of the Year 2025 for the Training and Communications Practice Specialty for his numerous contributions. In his spare time, Todd enjoys kayaking, bodysurfing, gardening and road tripping to rock concerts.
When I was a manufacturing manager in the semiconductor industry, there was a freak accident and one of my supervisors got sprayed with a caustic chemical all over his cleanroom bunny suit. What should’ve been a minor safety incident became a major one when they did EVERYTHING wrong despite receiving extra safety training and promoting safety on their shift. How could this happen?! Our incident investigation turned up startling misconceptions across the entire manufacturing department about safety equipment and procedures despite hours and hours of training and routine safety communications. This rocked me to the core and caused me to question the fundamental effectiveness of traditional training and communication. I’m happy to say we found better methods, but the bar for safety training and communication must be held extremely high. We need to continually be on the hunt for ever more effective ways of engaging our colleagues and ensure that they will act safely and correctly when the time comes. New technologies like artificial intelligence and virtual reality are revolutionizing training and communications. We need to stay abreast of developments and ensure our members know how to take advantage of them. That said, not every company can afford the time and resources necessary to implement them and we must be up-to-date on the latest, greatest no-tech and low-tech methods as well. I look forward to supporting our practice specialty’s administrator with creativity and verve in the coming years.