I am the CEO of what used to be a modestly large property management firm. As I near retirement, we've stopped hiring new people to replace those who retire. Recently our Certified Lead Inspector and Certified Renovator employees retired, so I figured I'd take the class myself so we'd be able to keep on top of our much smaller current portfolio of properties. After 30 years of running renovations, sending employees to training and record keeping I thought the class would be a snooze and huge waste of my time. Just be sure, I ordered and read the entire textbook in advance, so I figured there was nothing for me to learn in the class. I was wrong.
The instructor, Robert, was amazingly able to make the dry material interesting and to relate it to real world issues. Just a simple "for instance," he asked "what's in the bottom of your toolbox." At home last night I found at least a quarter inch of dust in my nail bags and bottom of the tool box. As I reached for the air hose to blow it out, I remember what Robert said about using a HEPA vac to clean up the dust instead of blowing air.
And biggest of all, my entire half century of working with lead and lead paints, I learned to think of protective measures in terms of PPE. Robert convincingly showed how environmental and engineering controls can be safer, cheaper and more comfortable.
The class shifted my entire mindset from PPE to not making dust in the first place. This will be useful in just about everything we do, not just lead work. My nailbags are now cleaned and oiled and I found all the little tools that had gotten lost in the debris at the bottom of my tool box.
At one point in the class I thought I'd caught Robert making a mistake or exaggeration. At break I asked him about it. He seemed really interested in my question. He researched and showed me why he was correct.
I highly recommend Robert as an instructor.
