Speaker: Tom Lauritzen
Tom Lauritzen has been employed at WorkSafeBC for 35 years, first working as an industrial hygiene technologist before becoming a noise control officer in 1980. In 1983, Tom became an occupational safety officer responsible for compliance, enforcement, consulting, educational, and investigational activities in high-risk industrial settings.
He was assigned to the Education and Training Department in 1986 to oversee the development and delivery of multi-industry educational programs, ranging from 15 minute crew talks to three-week diploma programs. Tom also developed and delivered the New Officer Training Program for occupational safety, and occupational hygiene officers.
In 1996, he was assigned to the Diamond Project, to develop a recognition program for excellence in workplace health and safety systems and an audit tool for measuring that excellence.
For the past 10 years, Tom’s been the regional prevention manager for Vancouver and then the Fraser Valley, managing 30 occupational safety and occupational hygiene officers, and support staff. His team is responsible for ensuring business owners, employers, workers, suppliers, and others fulfill workplace health and safety requirements.
Prior to WorkSafeBC, Tom worked in the forest-products sector (sawmills) as a production and maintenance foreman. He graduated from the British Columbia Institute of Technology in 1974, with a degree in Forest Products Technology.
Tom has presented at safety and health conferences locally, provincially, and nationally, on a variety of topics related to health and safety.
He will retire from WorkSafeBC in June, and plans to spend more time learning the unlearnable game of golf. Tom will also be consulting on a part-time basis to continue his passion in educating individuals on health and safety.