Mission and Values
The mission of the Environmental Health & Safety Department is to ensure the safety of students, employees, and visitors to Florida Institute of Technology, and the preservation of the environment by the application of a comprehensive safety program that strictly adheres to federal, state, and local regulatory as well as industry standards.
Our core values center around being:
- Honest
- Efficient
- Collaborative
- Supportive
- Innovative
- Effective
Purpose and Plan
The Florida Institute of Technology (Florida Tech) Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) Strategic Safety Plan is a guiding document for the department to prioritize work and resources, while accomplishing its mission. This plan is designed to align with the overall university’s strategic plan.
The Plan Process
In March 2019, EHS commenced with a four-month process to develop a strategic safety plan document. This plan update was based upon the first plan (2020-2024 version) with the continued efforts of Florida Tech professionalism in keeping up with safety standards for the present and the future of its community for the 2025-2029 school years.
Understanding the Environment
To define strategies that will successfully lift EHS to its goals, a strong understanding of the department is necessary. Documents were gathered and reviewed, including any studies, previous plans, reports, policies, and other mandates. Of interest was any previous strategic safety plans. EHS personnel and stakeholders were interviewed to provide additional input to the process.
Environmental Health and Safety Department
EHS administers the occupational health, safety, and environmental management programs and procedures for Florida Tech and is staffed by professionals with expertise in various fields of safety.Some of these areas include radiation safety, biosafety, chemical safety, and environmental management. EHS assists the university community in identifying and addressing health and safety issues within offices, research areas, and support staff (facilities’) work sites.
EHS also plays a vital role in the identification and minimization of risk to property, business interruption, financial, and reputational risk. This department works closely with Florida Tech’s Academic Research Colleges/Departments, the Facilities Operations, the Security Department, Student Affairs, General Counsel Office, and the Athletics Department.
Biosafety/Biomedical-Professionalism
Biosafety/Biomedical Professionals help workers safely manage biological agents and substances present in or arising from the work environment that are hazardous or potentially hazardous to the worker, student, community, and environment.
Environmental Management-Professionalism
Environmental Management Professionals oversee all environmental compliance programs for the university. They manage hazardous, universal, biological, and radioactive material issues.
Health and Safety-Professionalism
Occupational Health and Safety Professionals lead a wide variety of programs to address both physical and health exposure-related risks. Programs include, but are not limited to, indoor air quality, asbestos, lead, hearing conservation, electrical safety, confined spaces, fall protection, accident investigation and recordkeeping, mechanical safety, ergonomics, and work area exposure prevention.
Laboratory Safety-Professionalism
Laboratory Safety Professionals administer the chemical hygiene and safety plans along with lab inspection guidelines. These professionals aid researchers by administering numerous programs dealing with training, hazard assessments, use of personal protective equipment, safe chemical storage and handing procedures, controlled substances, laser safety, compressed gas safety, pressure vessel safety, among others.
Radiation Safety-Professionalism
The Radiation Safety Professionals assist the research community with radiation related programs. They provide training and consultations, conduct routine safety inspections in laboratories, assist researchers with the acquisition and disposal of radioactive materials and radiation producing devices, and maintains radiation emergency response capabilities.
Environmental Health and Safety Goals
Goal #1
Proactively identify and capture safety concerns throughout the campus
Strategy
- Ensure all Internal Budget Review safety concerns are addressed prior to project commencement.
- Perform frequent walkthroughs of the campus to audit concerns/behavior.
- Ensure that high-hazard areas (e.g., waste storage) are visited/reviewed at least weekly.
Goal #2
Achieve a solid alliance and professional trust with university researchers (faculty). This will better establishing a consistent and lasting culture of safety across the campus community.
Strategy
- Provide responsible parties of worksite areas with a timely safety inspection report, not only documenting concerns, but offer solutions to a course of corrective actions.
- Continue to create/source additional resources and educational material to offer on the EHS website for the whole campus community.
- Improve systems and processes for more effective, user-friendly, and collaborative document submission for researcher projects.
Goal #3
Increase training compliance as it applies to safety for all personnel and students.
Strategy
- Help successfully source an effective and efficient training platform system by vetting a variety of qualified vendors.
- Collaborate with Risk Management, Human Resources, and Department Heads to educate the campus community as to required training against applicable regulations.
- Aid the Information Technology Department during the migration to ensure a smooth transition from the current training platform to a new one.
Goal #4
Ensure timely and accurate responses to two core areas of service EHS provides: Hazardous and Biomedical waste pickups and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) assessments.
Strategy
- All requests that are received by EHS will be promptly addressed.
- Cross-training of staff will occur to better ensure that requests are fulfilled during times “out of office” personnel.
- Vet responses and assessments through the EHS team members prior to issuing to the responsible party—this will act as an effective peer review system.