A process safety boot camp is planned for July 11 to 14 at the University of Nebraska-Kearny. Taught by experts from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the four-day boot camp will provide ethanol plant employees with a deeper understanding of process safety and process safety management that goes beyond personal worker safety.

Process safety management is intended to prevent severe damage to equipment that may lead to catastrophic fires, explosions, and toxic releases. These incidents have the potential to injure or kill workers and neighboring residents. The course will cover key process safety areas, including risk-based process safety, process hazard analysis, regulatory compliance and process safety in plant operations.

The instructors from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers include Don Abrahamson and Jerry Jones.  Abrahamson is a senior process safety specialist with than 40 years of experience in operations and engineering, specifically relating to process safety management, operations management, process safety engineering, technical management, quality assurance management, process development and research. He previously worked for Celanese and Occidental Chemical. Jones is a staff consultant with more than 40 years of experience in chemicals, polymers, and pharmaceuticals for Monsanto, SRI International, Raychem, and Genentech/Roche. 

Attendees will get practical technical training with real world applications at the boot camp, which will combine lectures on techniques with interactive case studies. Participants will gain the ability to implement a site-wide commitment to process safety, utilize process safety metrics, identify and understand hazards and risks and manage risk.

The intended audience for the boot camp includes plant personnel at ethanol plants and other bioprocessing and chemical manufacturing facilities, utility providers, and petroleum or natural gas distribution storage networks in the state of Nebraska.

The Nebraska Ethanol Board is offering a tuition reimbursement of $500 per person upon completion of the course to employees of qualifying ethanol plants located in Nebraska. Reimbursement is limited to the first 20 qualifying registrations.

Registrations are due Friday, June 23. To learn more or to register, contact Matthew Jorgensen at 308- 293-5884 or mjorgensen@unl.edu or click here.