Editorial:The More Things Change ...

We have a lot to talk about this month! Staff changes, new additions to our Editorial Advisory Board and some changes to the magazine and Web site are on the horizon.

Stephen Minter, whose mug has graced the Editor's Notebook page in this magazine for probably more years than he'd care to admit and who has been part of the Occupational Hazards editorial team since 1977, has received a well-deserved promotion to publisher and editorial director of Occupational Hazards.

As for me, I was told Oct. 7 that I was the new editor of Occupational Hazards, which is an honor and a privilege. I joined the staff of the magazine in 1990 as an assistant editor. Pete Sheridan, the executive editor at the time, hired me because he was a union guy from way back and my father and grandfather were both union guys. Not too many people can say their families actually held a celebration complete with cake and ice cream when the Occupational Safety and Health Act was signed.

You'll see a few changes in upcoming issues of Occupational Hazards and on our Web site, Occupational Hazards.com. Our FYI department is morphing into a new department called Community. We want to build a community with our readers and our advertisers, and we believe that by expanding our coverage of what people are accomplishing, celebrating and producing in EHS, we will help to do just that.

Occupational Hazards is introducing blogs to Occupational Hazards.com, as well as RSS (real simple syndication) feeds, so that you can add Occupational Hazards.com articles to your My Yahoo, My MSN or My Google News account.

We're also happy to announce the addition of five new members to the Editorial Board. They bring a variety of experience and knowledge to the magazine that will be extremely valuable as we continue through a period of profound change in both the make-up of the American work force and the evolution of magazine publishing and Internet-based communication. Our new members are:

• Jane Ellery, Ph.D., director, Wellness Management, Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology, Ball State University
• David Lawson, director of Health, Safety and Environment, Freudenberg-NOK
• Dennis E. Richling, M.D., president, Midwest Business Group on Health
• Scott Schneider, CIH, director, Occupational Safety and Health, Laborers Health & Safety Fund of North America
• James Swartz, director, Corporate Safety, Delta Air Lines Inc.

We're particularly happy to note that both Delta and Freudenberg-NOK have been recognized as America's Safest Companies.